Archive for April, 2010
I Had To Sell My Subaru When The Maintenance Costs
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I Had To Sell My Subaru When The Maintenance Costs Rose
Back in 2000 when I was looking for my first car I decided to buy my Subaru because it was neat and compact with a small engine and low running costs. I was just out of university struggling along in my first job and the secondhand threedoor little car was the best I could manage at the time.
Although Ive since moved on from that job and am now paid a respectable salary out of some bizarre kind of loyalty to my first car which in all fairness has never caused me any great problems I refused to sell my Subaru and kept it as its value depreciated and it became less and less practical. But since it continued to run I also reasoned that there was no reason to look for a new car employing the maxim if it aint broke dont fix it. I dont do many long journeys so didnt feel justified in shelling out for a new car with all the the associated financial and environmental costs. I figured Id just run it into the ground and hold onto it for as long as I could.
I decided to sell my Subaru Impreza when I took it into the garage for its last service. When I realised that the money I would need to spend on it over the next couple of years to ensure it kept passing its MOTs would be greater than the value of the car itself I bit the bullet and looked for a Subaru buyer. Selling my Subaru was a sorry decision but it made no sense to keep pouring cash into a car that was ultimately destined for the scrap heap I might as well cut my losses and buy a newer car that would need less maintenance and would in the long term save me money.
I used the classified ads in the local paper both to sell my Subaru and look for a new car. It was a new experience for me; I had bought my first car from a family friend as I knew he was giving me a good deal and it would be in good condition so Id never had to negotiate the endless questions of model age space safety record fuel efficiency price and colour that confronted me when I scanned the listings. In the end I decided my requirements five door hatchback no more than five years old and made a set of fairly arbitrary decisions to narrow it down further.
I had several inquiries from people wanting to buy my Subaru though one or two were put off when they saw it. I did everything I could within reason to make it more attractive from the obvious clean and polish to replacing the worn old windscreen wipers and filling it with petrol as an incentive. I finally found my Subaru buyer a student looking for a first car who wasnt too worried about the longterm potential as long as it got her to the end of her course. I felt it had found its rightful home and was pleased that Id managed to get something for it even if it wasnt much.
About the writer: David Barber wrote the Article ‘I had to sell my Subaru when the maintenance costs rose’ and recommends you visit http://www.iainmutch.co.uk if you need a Subaru buyer
Hydrogen Powered Cars For Today
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Hydrogen Powered Cars For Today
In many ways hydrogen is the ideal fuel. It can deliver lots of energy when it burns and its clean. Burn hydrogen and you get water instead of the gunk that comes out of a car’s tailpipe. It would be great to run cars on hydrogen. But there are problems. Storing large quantities of hydrogen can be hard and the stuff can be volatile in an accident remember the Hindenberg? Even so there is a safe way to use hydrogen to power cars today. And it works with most of the cars on the road right now.
The key to building a hydrogen powered car today is to create a hydrogengasoline hybrid. Instead of getting all the car’s power from hydrogen you burn a bit of hydrogen with the gasoline to increase the car’s fuel efficiency and reduce the amount of pollution created. It isn’t a completely hydrogen powered car but a system like this is surely a great first step toward increasing your gas mileage thereby reducing the use of fossil fuels protecting the environment and saving some serious money on gasoline costs. We’ll talk more about these benefits in a minute but first let’s talk about where we’re going to get the hydrogen to do all this.
Where Does the Hydrogen Come From?
We already talked about how hydrogen can be difficult to store and explosive under the wrong circumstances. So to make hydrogen powered cars practical we need a way to store hydrogen that’s safe and efficient for use in cars. Scientists are working on various proposals like hydrogen fuel cells and special tanks made with nanotech materials that can safely and compactly store masses of hydrogen. But there is another way.
Hydrogen is stored all around us in vast quantities. There is even a mass of it inside our bodies. It’s locked up in water. Every molecule of water consists of one atom of oxygen and two atoms of hydrogen. In the form of water hydrogen is easy to store and certainly won’t explode in an accident. All we need is a way to get the hydrogen out of the water when we need it. To do that we use electrolysis.
Electrolysis uses electricity to break down water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms. It’s a common wellunderstood process that you probably experimented with in high school science class. Now using electrolysis to generate enough hydrogen to provide all the power for a car as it is needed isn’t practical. But generating a smaller amount of hydrogen that can be mixed with the gasoline to improve a car’s performance is possible. As a matter of fact you can buy a kit to convert your own family sedan into a hydrogen powered car today.
Now that we know how this is possible let’s get back to the benefits of actually making this modification.
The Benefits of A Hydrogen Powered Car
There are three main benefits to a hydrogen powered car aside from the coolness of it all. Once again they are:
* Greater fuel efficiency
* Cleaner exhaust
* Reduced costs for fuel
Greater fuel efficiency comes from burning the hydrogen along with the gasoline. Reports claim as much as a 40 increase. Imagine getting 40 more miles per gallon from your car!
Because the hydrogen burns so cleanly while increasing the car’s mileage a hydrogen powered car pollutes less. While this issue isn’t in the front of everyone’s minds in this time of high gas prices less pollution is always a good idea.
Finally with gas prices hitting record highs and predictions of new records to come the significantly increased mileage of a hydrogen powered car means big savings on fuel costs.
With gas prices skyrocketing and thousands of hydrogengasoline conversions on the worlds roads isn’t it time for you to start thinking about turning your automobile into a hydrogen powered car?
About the writer: Bill Mann is a freelance technology writer who helps people benefit from the technology all around us. He is a big fan of alternative fuel systems and strongly recommends that you go to this site to learn more about converting to a hydrogen powered car.
How To Shop For Quality Car Stereo Subwoofers
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How To Shop For Quality Car Stereo Subwoofers
Car Stereo Subwoofers are important. If you are the kind of person who likes the deep thumping bass for your car stereo you need speakers that render great bass. These are nothing but the subwoofers which generally do not come along with the car stereo system. You would have to buy and install them separately.
If you are looking for a basic sub woofer in order to be able to have a lot more bass out of your system then an amplifier is required. To power a subwoofer a class D monochannel amplifier is available. The class D monochannel amplifier is designed only for a sub woofer to be powered. Class D amplifiers are more economical. All their power goes into one channel only. Thus two channels do not have to be bridged together. An amplifier having an RMS power equal to or little less than the RMS of the sub woofer would suffice. RMS is nothing but the power which the unit can continuously handle.
If two woofers are present then you must ensure that the amp is capable of giving the required power to both. Connecting both of them in a parallel circuit may have to be done to get the best results. If your amplifier’s maximum RMS power is equal to or more then the sub woofer’s RMS power there is nothing for you to worry about. If the RMS power of the amplifier is more than that of the sub woofer care should be taken while blasting music. This is because giving too much power to the woofer may be dangerous as it might blow.
If the amplifier is with more than one channel for your sub woofer please ensure that it can be bridged. When you bridge two channels double the power of one channel is obtained. This bridging is resorted to if the one channel does not provide enough power for the woofer alone. Such kind of high power is more expensive and is also not required for a basic sub woofer connection. Other specifications of the woofer and amp like sensitivity or frequency response should also be tried and matched to ensure that both of them can operate to the fullest capacity.
Before you buy subwoofers you must make sure you know what exactly you are looking for. The kind of music you like and want to listen to determines your choice. If you are looking for greater bass in your music bigger subwoofers are required. You would have to decide as to where the subwoofers are going to be placed. Subwoofers are generally placed in an enclosure trunk. In using enclosures that are especially for subwoofers they can be in side panels or under the seats. Where you are going to place it depends on the kind of space you have at your disposal. Smaller cars generally can not afford to give up a lot of space in relation to the quality of the sound. Also while buying the subwoofers you must keep your budget in mind.
All these factors play a major role while deciding the kind of subwoofers you are looking for.
Car Stereo Subwoofers are sold online and off.
About the writer: Muna wa Wanjiru Has Been Researching and Reporting on Car Stereos for Years. For More Information on Car Stereo Subwoofers Visit His Site at CAR STEREO SUBWOOFERS
