Bogieblog

We haven't had any rain in two weeks. After months of only getting abut 1" of rain per month, we are in a severe drought with parts of the state in extreme drought. With state rivers and streams down to 1% (99% of years they have been running higher at this time), and lakes down massively, I have only been watering the four new plants I put in a couple of weeks ago. All other gardens have to deal the best they can on their own. Last I heard on the local channel, at present we are at the driest month of September ever, with 0.19" of rain. The month could move down in the list if we get the much needed rain that is forecast for tomorrow.

One of the black cherry trees has decided to show a bit of nice color anyway.

It has been since the early 80's that I last had to change a car tire. Yesterday I got to test my skills as I blew a tire in the driveway; a really good place for a tire to go. It was totally my fault  as I got distracted by my garage door being open (I was returning from the store). I always close the garage door when I leave the house, and I was trying to see if everything was still in there or if anyone was inside.Well, as I was rubber-necking, I hit a sharp rock on the retaining wall and the tire let me know it was not happy. No, no part of the car hit, just the tire.

I've never used a scissor jack before, or lifted from the frame, but I got the spare donut on and drove to the local dealer. I was discussing putting on two front tires with the advisor when she told me that Thursday some good rebates are coming out if I could wait. Since I have the truck (and don't have to drive to work either), I don't need the car right now, so I told her I would wait - and possibly just go ahead and put on 4 tires. I left the car in their parking lot and they gave me a ride home.

GTG Time

Last weekend I loaded the truck for a dump run and then I was to head out past Keene to visit some Firewood Hoarder friends that had come up from NJ (they are building a house in NH but getting the lot cleared first). I got in to start the truck. At first, the starter barely turned over. Surprising since I had driven it a good distance the previous week so the battery should have been charged. I let off the key and tried again and this time the belt started squealing, there was a snap and smoke, then the starter started going and the truck started.

Hmm, turned it off, lifted the hood, let the smoke clear but couldn't see anything amiss. Got back in cranked the key, and the truck acted like nothing had ever been wrong - cranking easily and starting smoothly. EXCEPT, the battery light went on. Argh, the battery is less than 2 years old. Decided to drive to the dump and found my power steering was out. So, drove back home, unloaded my cooler (water and juice - it was to be hot), lawn chair and other things I was to take to the get together (GTG), and put them in the car. Then, drove the truck to the dealership that is two miles away told them they could have it as long as they needed it. They got me home and I went on my merry way to my original destination.  A few pics from the GTG.

Long distance hug to the gang when I got there

The dealership called while I was at the GTG. The alternator had seized (never had that happen before - other issues yes, but not seizing). It required an alternator and belt, and it would be best to replace the tensioner while it was apart. I approved all the work and they said probably be done on Monday. Good to their word, late Monday morning they called and it was done. However, there was a crisis at work (the 2nd one in as many weeks - the first of which I was still working), so I was in meetings virtually all day every day, so didn't get to pick it up until Friday (now you know why I like to keep two vehicles).

Friday, after working a couple of hours (it was supposed to be an off-Friday), I started walking to the dealership. It was pleasant temperature wise, and nt too humid so I enjoyed the walk. I was surprised to hear the river roaring before I got to the bridge. Sure, it had rained almost an inch the night before, but it has been extremely dry the last couple of months (except that 4" in a couple of days several weeks back).

Dam under bridge close to my house

Bridge to nowhere next to the dealership. This was the original bridge on that side of town and the town decided to keep it as a "park" or bike path when the new bridge was built. It can't be a bike path since it goes nowhere (literally, it ends in the air to the right of the picture) and who has a park that is all concrete topped?

Love the huge flag the dealership displays. Saw a crow getting ready to go by, so waited until it was in the frame.

The truck is all wel again and steers much easier with the power steering back!

It has Been Arranged

I have arranged to pay off the truck by the end of this month. I bought the truck the end of April, 2018 - so less than 2 years to pay off. Always my goal to pay off vehicles way early and am happy that it worked out for me. Of course I waited until I had a good idea of if I would owe the IRS before determining if I could make the payoff. Don't have the final numbers, but know for sure I won't owe, so that is all I needed to set the date.

12,000

Yesterday, I rolled 12k on the car - which I've had since late December. I use the Explorer for winter driving, hauling and most weekend errands and have about 6k miles on it since the beginning of the year. I have about 2,500 miles on the bike for other commuting miles this season (that does not count pleasure rides - just to work and meetings), so yeah, I put a little time and miles on my butt going to and fro :O

Almost Like Winning the Lottery

When I was looking at cars, I knew that if things went reasonably well ( i.e.no major set backs), that I would either pay off the car in a short time, or pay off the truck loan (bought the truck April 2018 and still owed about as much as the budget I had in mind for a car).

When I bought the Focus, part of the deal for getting such a low price, was getting a $1,000 discount for using Ford Cred*t to finance. You had to keep the loan at least 3 months, then could refinance (which I'll bet a lot of people don't think to later). See, that financial option runs about twice the rate of what other options cost. With my excellent credit, the lowest rate I could get was 6.7%!!!! Almost any bank or credit union would give me 3.9% at the time. My truck loan, even though used rates are higher than new rates, is at 3.3% - so I knew I would be paying off the car first.

Anyway, I took their finance option each payment that I made was well over what was required. I paid the car off in June, paying them a total of right around $250 in interest - so in all, I got a $750 discount. I got the title within a week of the final payment and then about 10 days ago I got a piece of mail from them. Hu? What could they want?

Apparently I overpaid by $1.03. Almost enough for a cup of coffee :)

Of Trucks and Cars

Unbelievably I have already put over 11,000 miles on the Explorer - and I have not yet owned it a year. I bought it with around 99k on it and it is up to 111,048. I remember that number because I had an appointment to have it inspected and the summer tires put on it . The tires got changed, but it needs the rear control arm and bushings replaced so I will take it in two weeks from now for that work (It is a time consuming job so it needs to be scheduled in advance).

The car is just about ready to start pulling the heavy load mileage wise. I bought it just before Christmas, on 2/6/19 it had 1,121 miles on it, and yesterday when I got home it had 3,434 miles. The picture below shows some of the cool things that make my heart got pitty-pat :)

• See at the bottom right, underneath the visual for the car, that green "A" with the arrow going around it? That means that the engine has turned itself off because it is at a stop and saving gas.
• The visual of the car shows me what lights are active - in this case, just the marker lights in the front (which is cool because I like to drive with my car lights on, for visibility, even during the daytime). The marker lights automatically come on if the headlights aren't activated, so I don't have to do anything. The picture changes when it gets dark enough to activate the headlamps and rear lights.
• It is also showing that at that point I was getting 38.2 mpg - and that is a calculation after doing nearly 309 miles since the last gas stop. When I stopped for gas this afternoon, it had 361 miles and I put 9.45 gallons in it - which calculates out to 38.2 mpg. So, the car is pretty accurate when it computes mileage (my truck is not quite so accurate - varying by about 1 mpg either way).

I know, I'm a simple person that delights in simple stuff :) But I do love this car so am happy I am getting to drive it more and more as the winter season is coming to a close.

Car Miles 1100+ and Milage is Up

On January 12, 2019, I wrote that the care may make it to the 1,000 mile mark in 2 weeks. Well, due to plenty of early morning snows and icy roads, it took until this past week to make that mark. I was able to drive the car to work the first 3 days of the week and apparently hit 1k on Tuesday, but didn't notice until Wednesday.

I also wrote that I was averaging about 30 mph but expected it to go up, which it did. for a couple of days after the last post, it started getting 32-33. Then, at about 900 miles it shot up dramatically. Driving the same routes, in the same conditions and at the same speeds, I am getting 37 mpg. Picture taken on my way home on 2/6/19.

Top left is miles that have been driven since last gas stop (at around 900 miles +/-)

Top right is average mileage (it is close to what I calculate off the miles and gallons to fill)

Bottom left is real-time mpg (obviously I was stopped at the time I took the picture)

Bottom right is expected miles to go until empty (so with the miles driven and mile to go, get about 440 miles per 12-13 gallon tank)

The thing that absolutely fascinates me, and I was warned about during the test drive so I wouldn't freak out, is that the engine will shut itself down at a stop. Now, the battery has to be fully charged - it won't shut down at the stop sign at the end of my road if I have just started it for the day. It also doesn't shut down if I have been driving a while, then stop (such as the 13 miles from my road to my first stop sign in Weare). But if it senses I am in city driving, at a stoplight, it will shut down. The second I take my foot off the brake, it starts back up and is ready to go. It will also do this if I am in slow traffic on the highway and then come to a stop. Whomever wrote the algorithm that tells the car how to tell traffic conditions really put some thought into it.

Today I was driving in very windy conditions and the mileage dropped to the high 35's - but that is still better than the old Focus did and I was more interested in seeing how much the conditions would affect the car than worried about the actual mileage.

Yeah, I'm kind of geeked out :)

Low Mileage

I bought the car on 12/22/18 with 27 miles on it - and I have yet to put any gas in it. Although it is averaging 30 MPG so far (still the break in period, so expect it to go up), there are other reasons it hasn't needed gas yet.

I didn't really go anywhere during plant shut down so it was just short trips thru town in which I actually intentionally took the long way around (the Hillsboro bypass), just to give it time to get warmed up. I drove it 2 out of the 3 days that I worked at my old job the first week of January, so there was another 120 miles. But last week, starting my new job with the 100 mile days, I drove the truck every day because it snowed/iced every day.

The 20 day plates expired this past Thursday so I got the plates transferred and the new car registered on Friday. It is now good to go until 2020 - except it still needs to get inspected in April this year.

When I got in the car this morning to go to the Winter Storage Party, it had about 209 miles. Even after driving to Concord, then going to W*lm*rt after the Storage Party, it still has less than 300 miles on it. According to the forecasts, it looks like I should get 2-4 days of driving the car to work next week. If the same holds true for the week after, there is the potential that I could hit the 1,000 mile mark in two more weeks.

More Car Pictures

I took more pictures of the car yesterday while I had it pulled out of the garage

And yes, it is a fairly tight fit

Definitely not getting the bike in/out while the car is in there. That is fine, it can spend time in the tent garage when the bike is here and the truck will be in the yard.

In with the New

On the 7th of January I will be starting a new job. This job will add another 40 miles per day to my commute (on top of my present 60 miles per day). That adds up to a minimum of 25k miles a year - if I only go to work and back. I started taking stock of what my vehicle situation was in preparation. The 2014 Explorer is good, but it has 107k miles. Hard to believe I bought it at 99k, not quite 8 months ago because I only put on about 7k a YEAR on my 2004 Explorer. And, the time of year that I need the 4WD is still to go. The 2007 Focus, well hmm:

• Mileage - 2015,500
• Clutch will need to be replaced in not to distant future
• Oil leak
• Plate light is out (got stopped the other morning) and it is an electrical issue not a bulb issue
• Uncomfortable seat from the years of use
• No modern amenities - can't even plug in an MP3 player
• Heater & A/C work good but can only get it at the windshield ($500 fix for a $15 part)
• Although the motor runs good on surface roads, and up to 60 mph short term, it struggles and is VERY loud at 70 mph (I will be traveling highway for about 20 miles)
• 3 out of 4 doors the outside door handles barely work and usually take several tries to open. Not that that is a big deal since the back seat isn't used unless I need to put objects back there but it doesn't help the shoulders to be yanked like that.
• Windshield pitted and had a couple of  small star cracks
• Headlights very dim - partly because the plastic lenses were yellow. In order to fix that, I would need to disassemble the front end to get to the inside of the lenses.

Oh sure, the 2007 has it's good points:

• Good gas mileage averaging 30-32 mpg
• Standard transmission (although driving it too many days in a row bothers my left hip)
• Small so I can fit bike and car into garage
• Fun to drive
• Beat enough that I wasn't concerned if it should get any dings, dents or scratches

Taking all that into consideration, plus realizing I didn't drive the car very often (15k in 3 years) because of weather (foggy, rainy, very cold, and of course slick roads), I decided I needed a change. A couple of weeks ago I started researching used vehicles. I started looking at 2012- newer, under 40k miles. It would seem I could find a lot of vehicles to like, but after researching (to death - LOL), different years for various makes/models, the list of possibilities shrunk. I also wouldn't consider anything that had an accident on record, which shrunk the field further. Last Tuesday, I had the day off to attend a couple of appointments, so I stopped at a couple of dealerships and test drove some used cars in my price range. I was unimpressed and some of them I downright disliked.

Yesterday morning, while perusing websites once again, I found that some new, 2018 models had been discounted steeply and were just above what my dollar range had been for used cars. I decided to test drive a 2018 Fiesta and a 2018 Focus. Both had the cold weather package (heated seats and side view mirrors - which I love in the truck) and the Focus had heated steering wheel plus a couple of upgrades to digital displays (none of which was a requirement, but nice to have). A list of the features

I drove the Focus first, and decided I didn't need to drive the Fiesta. The Focus was very comfortable and responsive so we struck a deal. Last night I came home with this (only the one picture because it was dark)

It does barely fit in the garage door and takes up more of the interior space than the old Focus. During summer months, in order to fit the bike into the garage, the Focus may be going into the tent garage with the truck sitting out in the yard. But that is okay by me.

So, here is to the old Focus, which always started, never left me stranded and most importantly gave me peace of mind that if my other vehicle was out of commission, I wouldn't be walking. May someone who is handy buy it at auction and be happy with it for years to come.

First picture on the day I got it January 2016

Last picture taken October 2018