Tag Archives: automotive

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Eulogy for the Jeep

  By Scott • 2011-08-31 ,
Jeep XJ Destroyed - 02

Back when it was en vogue to play music from Compact Discs, the Death and Destruction mixes provided adequate motivation to ruin lawns. Mo once took the Jeep to Florida, and Sag fixed the intermittent wipers in his anger.  Another time nine people took it on a camping trip that ended poorly, with no camping. It went to Pittsburgh twice, getting towed only once.  It had a laptop mount, because that’s important.  We yelled at passers-by with a megaphone until the police made us stop. It got pulled over by the police more times than anyone can remember, and even had its license plates confiscated in the name of gross irresponsibility. Sure, it crashed into some things unintentionally, but that … Continue reading

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Chevy Volt Electrical Cost Analysis

  By Scott • 2011-06-27 ,
Voltec Installation - Meter powered on

I’ve been tracking the electrical usage of our Chevy Volt, Sparky, for the past couple of weeks.   Before we bought Sparky we did some research on the Volt’s electrical consumption and did some off-the-cuff cost projections.  Unfortunately, there was very little real world data available online, mostly because other bloggers weren’t able to monitor their Volt’s actual kWh utilization and were instead using the change in usage pre- and post-Volt. That was my impetus for installing a kWh meter inline with my Level 2 charger,  a project that you can read about here. I’m going to periodically update this post with fresh data as it becomes available, and the numbers below cover the period 6/13/2011 through 6/27/2011. The electric rate … Continue reading

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Installing Our New 240V/Level 2 Voltec Charge Station (Phase II)

  By Scott • 2011-06-07 , , , ,

This is a follow-up to my previous post, Chevy Volt Metered Charging (Phase I). In the first phase, I ran a new dedicated circuit from the subpanel in my garage to the opposite wall to connect a 120V charging station.  In this phase, I removed the existing receptacle, rewired for 240V, installed the Voltec Level 2 charging station, and wired the kWh meter inline. It’s not my intent to write a full set of instructions for installation here.  The purpose of this post is to illustrate some of the installation steps with real-world pictures, which are somewhat hard to come by online (the pictures are rather small, but you can click on any of them for a larger version). As … Continue reading

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Chevy Volt Metered Charging (Phase I)

  By Scott • 2011-05-14 , , , ,
Chevy Volt 120V Charger Mounted on the Wall

My wife and I recently brought home a brand new Chevy Volt (named “Sparky“), the plug-in electric hybrid vehicle (PHEV) from Chevrolet.  It’s a really cool car, and you can read about our first experiences with it here. Of course, the whole point point behind a PHEV is the actual plugging in.  The Volt comes with a 120V charger that plugs into your average 15A receptacle, and can fully charge the car in about 10 hours. Chevrolet’s charging station partner, SPX, sells a variety of Level 2 charging stations compatible with the Volt (and most plug-in electric vehicles, including the Nissan Leaf).  The Level 2 charging stations use 240V, and can charge the Volt in about 4 hours.  We’re going to be … Continue reading

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Sparky, Amanda’s Brand New Chevy Volt

  By Scott • 2011-05-05 ,

We have a new baby in the house, and not the pooping/barfing kind of baby. It’s a brand-spankin’-new Chevrolet Volt, purchased from Arnold Chevrolet in West Babylon, NY.  They had the last black Volt in all of Long Island. First Impression I didn’t really have any pre-conceived notions about Chevys, and have never owned one.  But we did have a 2005 Acura TL for a few years, and that’s the closest vehicle to which I can compare the Volt in overall build quality, fit, finish and features.  The Volt is comparable in price to a TL (discounting the $7,500 tax credit), and in my opinion is in the same class.  Hell, the front end of the Volt even looks similar to the … Continue reading

Rotor Puller Kludge

  By Scott • 2004-08-03 , ,

Background I’ve only recently begun doing my own maintainance and repairs on my Jeep XJ 2000. I’ve hit a few snags and problems along the way, and this page details a solution for the most frustrating I’ve encountered so far. I went to replace both my front rotors, and they were both well beyond stuck to the hub. I’d been hammering, pushing, pulling, and spraying the old rotors on one fine Saturday for over 3 hours (4 hours if you count the time I took to go to the auto parts store and stop for a beer). Finally it was close to getting dark when one of my neighbors came along and advised that I should rent a rotor puller … Continue reading