The modern fuel-efficient automobile.

Unrelated, but still on the subject of test driving, BMW invited me out to their "Ultimate Drive Event", where they have a number of their cars and some of their competitors' cars-- in this case, four different Mercedes-Benz models-- available to test drive. 

It seems I treated this completely incorrectly. Most folks were interested in driving the big V-8 powered $100,000 cars. I was interested in the other end of the spectrum. BMW's recently changed their low-end models from a naturally aspirated inline-six engine to a turbocharged four cylinder, and I was interested in driving that. I drove three different varieties, plus the lowest-end Mercedes they had, which had a 3.5L V6 under the hood.

I'll preface this by noting that I've never been a big fan of four-cylinder engines, and I really don't like "big" four-cylinders, up above two liters displacement or so. One might think this is because a four-cylinder is a small engine and doesn't make much power, but that's got very little to do with it. My problem with the four-cylinder engine is all in what automotive engineers call "NVH", Noise, Vibration, and Harshness.

An inline four cylinder engine (as opposed to a "boxer" or H-4 engine, like you might find in a Volkswagen or a Subaru) isn't mechanically balanced. This means they need a balancing shaft to cancel out vibrations that are caused by the motion of the pistons. They (along with their boxer cousins) also have the problem that the power pulses don't overlap-- four cylinders and four strokes means that each cylinder is doing one of the four phases of engine operation at any given time, unlike a 6 or 8 cylinder where there's some overlap. Both of these contribute to annoying vibrations.

Why I-6 engines (red) are rare: when you put the cylinders next
to each other (yellow) , you can fit the engine in more places. 

This is the big reason why I wanted to try BMW's new four-cylinder. BMW's one of the few companies left building inline-six motors instead of V-6s, because inline 6s are in both primary and secondary mechanical balance inherently, where V-6s require balancing shafts.  If they'd managed to get a four-cylinder to behave politely enough to replace their I-6, that's saying something, right?

Turns out the answer is, "Well sort of." Don't get me wrong-- it's not bad. Honestly, most modern I-4s and V-6s aren't. It wasn't the nice smooth experience you get out of an I-6 or a crossplane V-8 though. The turbocharger does mean they get adequate power out of a lower-displacement engine, which means it's not as harsh as a bigger engine, which is good. 

Overall, I like the new 2L turbo-- even in the de-tuned version they have in the 320i. But it is still a 4-cylinder. I was a little disappointed that this engine isn't a case of, "Look what we can do!". It's more, "This is what we're stuck with so we can meet the EPA's goals by 2015." 

Which is where the real NVH problem was with three of these (and more and more modern) cars. When a car's engine isn't spinning quite fast enough to make enough power to do what you're asking it to in a given gear, it "lugs". Unfortunately, right on the edge of this is where you'll get the best mileage out of a car; the slower the engine is turning for a given speed, the less gas it's using (generally).

The sound a car makes when it's doing this is like nails on a chalkboard to me. We grew up being taught not to lug the engine. We know it can lead to bearing failures, piston slap, all manner of nasty engine trouble. Sure, engines are better now... but it sounds horrendous nonetheless. 

This is the biggest problem with the tendency toward more and more forward gears on automatic transmissions-- The E350 I drove had a six-speed transmission, the BMWs I drove yesterday had 8 speeds. Chrysler and GM have teamed up to build 9 and 10 speed gearboxes. Eventually the sum of human endeavor will be put into building gearboxes with more and more gearsets in them-- or at least everyone who isn't putting more and more razor blades on a razor will be building these transmissions,

This just means that for any chunk of road in any given conditions, there are now 6 or 8 (or soon, 9 or 10) different velocities you can travel that will have you on that fuel-efficient but nerve-grating edge of lugging the engine.  And continuously-variable transmissions can always be there. Ugh. 

The three cars that did this  got much nicer to drive in "Sport" mode-- or, as Amy puts it, "When you push the JD button." (She's incorrect. The JD button is the one between the windshield and the sunroof-- the one that opens that sunroof.) The engine spun about 500 RPM faster and never felt like it wanted to lug. But when I put each transmission in manual mode, it was even better-- I didn't need 500 RPM to keep the engine happy, I only needed around half that. As long as I could get past the eons it takes an automatic transmission to shift (and they're SO much better than they used to be!), they all drove quite nicely. 

This seems to be a developing trend as we try to add more and more fuel efficiency to cars. It seems like just about every thing I've rented in the past few years also wants to ride on that edge of lugging the engine. 

Two exceptions were the BMW 328i I drove yesterday and Amy's RAV4. Neither lugs significantly unless you push the button that puts the car in "Eco" mode. I consider this a reasonable middle ground: If you don't mind that noise, you can have the extra half a mile per gallon (or however much it is.) If you do, leave it in standard mode and it'll sound fine. Hopefully more cars will begin to do this. 

Thoughts on test-driving a car

A friend of mine is in the unfortunate position of needing a new car-- unfortunate because when you're not a petrolhead, generally you don't want a new car. I was originally putting thoughts on how to test drive a car into her Facebook page, but it got awfully large, and I migrated it over here.

I think the first piece of the puzzle is to narrow down what you're looking for. We get annoyed at the office when someone wanders in and asks for something incredibly broad. "Hey, can you make me a web page?", they might ask. "Sure, what kind?" "Like you'd get to in Explorer. A web page." So I have to imagine that car salespeople get the same way. "I want to buy a car." "Great! What kind of car?" "One with wheels. And maybe seats." 

The other thing you need to do before you show up at a dealership is to be prepared to take notes. I made a little crib sheet to jot notes down on. There's a lot of stuff to take in, don't trust your brain to remember all of it.  I put space for each of the vehicles I was interested in on my crib sheet. When the salesman sees it, he knows you're considering other vehicles.

Once you're in the car, take a moment before you put the car in gear to go over a few things:

• How comfortable is your seat? Would you be okay sitting there for a long road trip? If not, try to adjust it closer to what you'd like. Don't forget to re-adjust the mirrors. Does the seat belt adjust to where it's comfortable and not digging into your neck?
• Listen. You're sitting in the car with the engine running but not moving, just like you would be at a traffic light or commuting on the Beltway. Does the engine sound harsh? Are you going to have to crank the stereo up to Mötley Crüe levels to drown out the noise?
• If you ever drive with the windows down, put them down and listen again. 
• Where's your left foot? Is there a "dead pedal" for it to rest on, or is the seating position high enough that it rests flat?  Or is it going to be dancing the left half of an Irish jig two hours into your next road trip, trying to get comfortable?
• Check your mirrors again. Can you get a good idea of where all four corners of the vehicle are-- you'll want to know next time you're stuck with parallel parking.

The salesman probably has a route he likes to use for test drives. You'll probably want to add to it-- he's not likely to take you to a rough section of road, and he may or may not get you out to the highway. Ask to do these things.

Ideally, he'll hand you the keys and say, "See you in a half hour", but that never seems to happen to me. 

This is kinda the "easy part" of the test drive. Most of how the car drives will be something you'll feel more than think about, but a few things to consciously note:

• When you're on the highway, listen to the car again. Does the exhaust drone? Will you be able to carry on a conversation with the hiker next to you? Do the tires whine?
• Can you see what's going on around you? Do you seem to have huge blind spots that no amount of mirror adjustment can fix? 
• Pay attention to parking the vehicle-- the salesman may offer to do it if you just pull it around front, but you'll want to know how tough it is to see the car next to you and how hard it is to get out of the car when you're parked next to another one.

When you get back to the dealership, sit there and take notes before you get out of the car. Go back over the pre-drive things-- still comfortable? Does the engine sound louder/quieter now that it's warmed up? 

Tesla May Change How Petrol Cars Are Sold, Too.

Tesla, the electric car manufacturer that hasn't been making the papers by going bankrupt (despite a huge influx of taxpayer financing) has found other ways to make waves.

Tesla's found themselves-- usually not by name, mind-- in state legislatures around the country. The problem, it seems, is that they don't have independent dealers; all 37 Tesla stores are owned directly by the company itself.

This isn't the way it works for other manufacturers. Cars, at least here in the United States, are sold by independent dealers. The dealership has Ford or Chrysler or Mazda logos all over the place, but they're not actually owned by Ford or Chrysler or Mazda. The person you talk to in the showroom or in the service bay gets a paycheck from a company entirely unrelated to the badge on the nose of the car.

Tesla wants to change all that-- they want to own their own dealerships. They want to own their own service garages. 

The folks who own automotive dealerships think this is a pretty ridiculous state of affairs-- and who can blame them? If we could buy cars on a website, why would we waste our time with dealers? If Tesla's allowed to own their own dealerships, why wouldn't Honda? Or Mercedes? Or Fiat? Well, maybe not Fiat, they'd be broke without Chrysler keeping them afloat right now.

The auto dealers have some allies. The commonwealth of Virginia denied Tesla a license to open a dealership in the state.

The North Carolina Car Dealers association gave the largest contribution allowed by state law to state Senator Tom Apodaca, so I'm sure it's no surprise that he sponsored a bill that, while not targeting Tesla by name, made it illegal for auto manufacturers to interact directly with consumers using computers or other communications facilities. From the looks of it, I have to assume this one will be struck down. I'm not a lawyer, mind, but it reads like Cadillac can't have a website that's available to North Carolina residents. Do you need to call the Volkswagen regional service manager because the local shop can't fix your problem? Too bad, North Carolina, they're not allowed to talk to you.

It's not all good news for the dealer networks-- similar initiatives were voted down in Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New York. There's a bill going through process in Texas right now, where the dealer can't currently deliver a car to you. Aside from North Carolina, you can order a Tesla anywhere in the US. You may have to visit another state to actually pick the car up, though. The bill in Texas would allow Texans to have their Teslas delivered direct to their houses.

In the interests of "fair competition", though, auto dealers are against direct sales. 

And I hope they lose.

"Fair competition" usually doesn't require you to pass a law to ensure the way you do it is the way it gets done. Competition means you do it your way, they do it their way, and the best way is the one that sticks around. Fair competition doesn't require courtrooms or legislatures. If there's underhanded dealing, sure, then get courtrooms involved-- but I find it hard to argue that it should be illegal for a car manufacturer to sell directly to the consumer when it's not illegal for anybody else to sell directly. Does the State of North Carolina have a problem with Apple owning Apple Stores, too? I hope not, they gave Apple a huge tax incentive to build a data center there...

What's more, the independent auto dealership is, in my opinion, a huge problem in buying automobiles today. Don't get me wrong-- I'm not saying there's no point in having a local place to buy or service a car. The fact that they're independent, though, causes a few problems.

The first is that they're inefficient. When I ordered my BMW, I'd been to two different dealerships on three separate occasions to test-drive them. I wanted to drive both a 128i and a 135i to determine how much I wanted the turbocharger. I wanted to drive the six speed traditional manual and the 7-speed dual-clutch manual. I wound up at two different dealerships to find the combinations of car I wanted to test to see what I liked.

BMW, the manufacturer, was doing a rebate through my insurance company, USAA. In order to qualify for the rebate, I had to use USAA's car buying service. USAA's car buying service wound up pointing me at yet a third (and fourth) dealership, and the one that earned my business wasn't either of the ones I drove cars at.

This is a problem, because it means I wasted those other two dealerships' time. If they were all owned by BMW, then my money would've gone into the same account that paid the other two dealerships-- but that's not how it works. The folks I bought the car from profited from labor done by two completely different companies.

Another reason that independent car dealerships are a problem is that the oversight from the manufacturers is apparently minimal at best. Most people I know dread buying a car. Most of them (my wife being an exception) don't hate the test driving, the researching, the finding out what's out there or even choosing between them. What most people hate is actually completing the deal. There are huge websites out there trying to teach you how not to get screwed by an auto salesman. They go over the "tricks of the trade". At most dealerships, the actual purchase feels more like going into battle than buying something we want to enjoy.

This has brought about an industry of car-buying services, which hope to get us the best price possible. Saturn came about with no-haggle pricing, but couldn't survive. CarMax has done something similar with their dealerships, and I wish them all the luck in the world. Most dealers, though, employ salesmen on commission whose job is to soak you for as much as they think they can get.

But imagine if you can actually order any car online, like the Tesla model. Tesla's web site doesn't go drawing four quadrants on a piece of paper and try to plow over you with numbers. It doesn't have to waste your time by bringing in the sales manager to vet a deal both you and the salesman know is reasonable. It simply asks you what options you want and presents you with a price.

If manufacturers own their own dealerships, like Tesla, and allow online ordering, then the local dealer can't try to screw you. There's no arcane mystery to getting the best price when you buy a car, unless it turns out you get a few bucks off by waiting for Black Friday or something. Your ability to get a fair price is no longer directly correlated to your ability to negotiate.

Now, in your local auto dealer's defense, they're not all like this. Both Amy and I bought new cars this year, and we both worked with dealerships that made the transaction almost entirely painless. I'd recommend the dealerships we worked with to anybody. (In fact, I'll do just that, because an exception to the "auto dealers are slugs" rule deserves a quick plug: If you're looking for a Toyota, talk to Steve Yang over at the Laurel CarMax. If you want a BMW, chat with Mark White at Passport down in Suitland (er, Marlow Heights). Neither dealership steered us wrong, and both salesmen/client advisors/whatever-they're-called-this-week knew a good bit about their product.) The entire industry shouldn't be painted with the same brush. 

We'll still need local dealers. There's no amount of online research that's going to tell me how the car drives on the other end of a computer-- and this is coming from someone with a steering wheel attached to his computer.  People who aren't me need to be able to talk to someone who knows more about the car than they do so they can get educated about it and make a wise decision. 

Good luck, Tesla. You're still outside my price range, but you build an interesting car, and your electric cars may not just change the way cars are powered in the future-- you may well change the way cars are sold, as well.

College cars

I finally finished up with the fifth season of Babylon 5, so I needed something new to watch on the elliptical. The current fare is the US version of Top Gear. It's nowhere near as good as the UK version, but it's good enough to keep my mind off how much it sucks to push an elliptical machine and never get anywhere.

On Wednesday, the episode was about college cars: the old beater you had in college. Their challenge was to determine which of the three of them had the best college car back in the day, with all the inane stuff that goes with it.

Oddly enough, their college days didn't look too much like my college days. Not that it would have mattered if I were in, because I would've won their challenges, too. 

Now, I did take eleven years to finally escape college, so I didn't have "a college car"-- I had more than one in that era. Mortis, the 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass, didn't survive to the end. My '99 Dakota R/T, wasn't really a college beater. And I'm not really sure what to think of the '70 Plymouth Fury III convertible, except that perhaps it would've been a better college car had I been in Navy ROTC, where my classmates could have practiced carrier landings on the trunk.

On the other hand, the car most people think of as my "college car", that'd be Scottie, the '81 Chevy Suburban. There's a reason people think of her as my college car: unlike the three beaters the Top Gear US chumps had, I had the ultimate college car.

Now, don't get me wrong. Scottie wasn't a spectacular car by the usual metrics. The air conditioners (she had two, one in front, and one in the back) were flaky at best, for example. She leaked oil and power steering fluid. She never did actually pass emissions; I had to limp her by on waivers. Might've had something to do with the back-woods-of-West Virginia fix to her AIR pump when it seized: the shop just cut the pulley off it and installed a shorter belt.

For a number of years, I carried around a starter motor and a chunk of re-bar in the back. The re-bar was to smack the starter solenoid once or twice a week to free it up; the motor was because I had to replace it every couple months. This, as it turns out, wasn't Scottie's fault. Once I sprung for the good one (which came with a new solenoid!), it lasted as long as she did. I just didn't think to ask how much more expensive the premium one was until the auto parts store didn't have a functional cheap one on the shelf-- I was a college student, and I was doing things on the cheap. How was I to know the difference in price was a whopping one cent?

Indeed, I learned an awful lot from Scottie-- usually the hard way-- about wrenching on cars. Judging by the list of parts I replaced (and the ones I let professionals handle-- I had no way to deal with a TH350 transmission, ferinstance), you're probably wondering how I could possibly think that I had the ultimate college car. But we were broke college kids. Everybody drove a cantankerous beater; it's tough to take off points because Scottie was one, too.

What made Scottie great was all the things she did. She took me all over the eastern seaboard, and one time we packed most of a dozen people in there (including the woman I'd eventually marry... who knew?) to head out to a crab feast while I was in the DC area with friends. What more could a college student want?

She carried all manner of stuff, which meant she was great when it came time for folks to move. Since moving between cheap apartments is something college students do almost as often as they scrounge through couch cushions for change to hit Taco Bell, having insane amounts of cargo space was exceptionally handy. She also shlepped around more than a few piles of surplus computer equipment and a few arcade games, and once she even shlepped around a few kegs; her utility could also be used for fun.

She was a better off-roader than she had any right to be. I did get her stuck twice-- and both times, it took some pretty heavy equipment to get her out; the friendly passer-by in the Jeep couldn't get us out of the snow bank I put her in, and I made it far enough across the mud pit at the Cobb County dump that they brought out a Caterpillar bulldozer to pull her free. (In my defense, the bag taped over the sign that said to go that way had come loose and blown over the sign telling me to go the way I was supposed to go...)

Her 40 gallon gas tank meant I could usually get to payday before I needed gas again. Fortunately, gas at the time was less than a buck a gallon, so once payday rolled around, I could even afford to fill her up.

Aside from a few oddball design decisions-- there were, for example, exactly two metric fittings that I ever found on what was otherwise an entirely SAE truck (and they weren't even the same size...)-- she was easy to work on. You didn't need wheel ramps to get underneath to replace the starter, which I eventually learned how to swap out in less than five minutes. Parts for a Chevy small-block can be found at Walgreens next to the cotton balls.

She was even fun to drive.  The V8 engine and trailer-towing gearing meant she took off from traffic lights quicker than many other college beaters. Surprisingly good brakes kept me out of trouble I might have otherwise gotten into. And when it came to handling, well, I just didn't know any better, I suppose...

She'd've probably done well enough in the contrived tests the Top Gear folks put their cars through, too, but I suppose we'll never know, 'cause those guys weren't smart enough to have an '81 Suburban when they were in college.

Special Delivery

Today ended nearly ten weeks of waiting: I finally picked up my car at the BMW factory in South Carolina. Even though the factory itself was closed to visitors, it was still a pretty busy day.

After a brief classroom session, we got out to our cars. Well, not our cars, but ones similar to ours. Seven of us were there for delivery. Mine was the only 1-Series, there were three 335is, a 650i, an M3, and an M5. We split up into two groups. I wound up with two of the 335is and first we went to learn about the antilock braking system.

The braking exercise was simple enough-- and I was pretty impressed at just how quick one of these things can whoa down from 55 mph. But mostly, it was an exercise that burned some time until the other group was done with the track over the hill from us.

The track session was, not surprisingly, my favorite part. And since I was solo, I got to run it twice; I went back out after the other two cars changed to the other car. This made up for having to pull into the pits once each session since I'd caught the heavier 3-Series ahead of me. 

The last track session we drove was a demonstration of the traction control mechanisms. We each spun a car out on the wet skid pad with it turned off, then did then went out and did the same thing with the system on. Fun stuff. 

After that, we had the option of one of the instructors taking us out for a lap in one of the M3s. After half a lap of hooning about, he settled in. I thought as he was driving, "Ah, the Scandinavian Flick", and at that point, he started describing what he was doing. "That's called a Scandinavian Flick", he noted...

After that, I met up with my delivery specialist, Nick, who took me to my car's own showroom and spent a good hour and a half going over how all the different greeblies in the car worked. Since I got the Tech package, even though I had already read the owner's manual, this refresher was still useful. 

Lunch was at the Center's cafetorium, and wasn't half bad. Beat most cafeteria, and had a surprising menu-- as an example, I had a side dish of grilled eggplant.

After lunch, my half of the group went out to the off-road track in a group of X5s. I must admit some hesitance before I went into the water trap after my experience with hydro locking the Mustang during Hurricane Irene.

At one point, to demonstrate the trucks' weight balance, the instructor put the truck on three wheels where a set of moguls held the front right and back left well above the back right, and the front left was in the air. He then got out and lifted the rear wheel by hand to put the X5 on its front wheel. While I knew BMW liked to build cars balanced between front and rear, I had no idea that extended to their trucks as well.

Our last stop was the small museum they have on-site. It's not spectacular, but has a few interesting pieces. It made for a better photo op then anything else. Perhaps I only find it a bit disappointing because I've been to their big museum in Munich.

After that, I was on my way to Atlanta, cruising down I-85 bouncing around between 5th and 7th gears to try to keep the engine RPMs varied during break-in, where I met up with a half dozen or so folks for dinner at the Salad Trough. How surprising...

Train, Plane, and an Automobile

...plus a shuttle bus thrown in for good measure.

My vacation started today, which involves picking up my 40th birthday present and driving it home, so as you can expect, the 'cars' part of my blog's name is on my mind. There should be a bit of 'expedition', as well.

I live about a quarter mile from a MARC station, so my usual way to the airport (assuming it's a weekday) involves walking to the train, taking the shuttle bus from the train station to the airport, and not having to pay to park a car. It's nice and convenient. That covers the plane and the train (and the bus), the automobile was how I got from the airport to the hotel-- a new X5; seems they don't send out the boring ol' Econoline for the BMW customers.

It's a gorgeous evening down here in upstate South Carolina. Supposed to be nice tomorrow, and I hope to be able to include photos then-- the Blogger app on my tablet's not quite as useful as the real computer, but I'm slowly getting used to it. By which I mean 'have given up and gone back to a web browser.' Even still, I seem to be tagging-challenged.

The Last Real [insert marque here]

There's a common lamentation amongst car guys: Cars have gotten simply too technological. The up-and-coming generation, we complain, cares little about how a car drives, all they care is whether or not the car will interface with their smartphone and has Facebook integration. The modern driver cares more about how the stereo sounds than how the exhaust sounds.

We complain about all number of things. We hate when a car uses an electronic sensor to let us know about the engine oil level rather than having a dipstick. We hate run-flat tires. Heck, there are even car guys running around who long for the days of carbureted motors. And sometimes we even complain about turbochargers, even though deep down, we still all want fifty more horsepower.

Some of us are shade tree mechanics, and we take it a step further. All of these things didn't just contribute to the soul of motoring, they also were things we could maintain ourselves. We'd need thousands of dollars of computer-based testing tools to be able to handle a hybrid car in our own garage, where it used to be all we needed was a set of socket wrenches and a spark gapping tool. 

There may be nothing that gets our ire up like modern transmissions. Car and Driver magazine has a Save the Manuals! campaign. Jeremy Clarkson complains once an episode about flappy-paddle gearboxes. We take pride in our abilities to drive a manual transmission. A Real Gearhead wants three pedals on the floor and a shifter to the right of his knee. A Real Petrolhead wants three pedals on the floor and a shifter to the left of his knee. It is simply The Way Of Things. 

As technology marches on, these things all change, and we get vehement about it. We declare that the modern version of a car isn't the true experience. The last REAL Charger had only two doors. The last REAL Miata had retractible headlights. The last REAL BMW had a naturally-aspirated inline-six. The last REAL Porsche was air-cooled.

We couch these arguments in terms of the "soul" of driving, as if the fundamental nature of driving has changed since the advent of front-wheel-drive or paddle-shifted transmissions or factory-installed subwoofers.

We talk in terms of driving passion, about the true nature of driving, sure, but we're mostly just being luddites. Why is it that we fear a remote sensor for oil level, but we're not all harkening back to the days when we used a dipstick to check our fuel levels?  Nobody seems to think that turning a crank on the front of the car is part of a pure driving experience, what makes an electric starter OK? What makes a disc brake (with power assistance!) or a tubeless tire just fine? Why is it that a manual choke adjustment isn't considered de rigueur for a  true driving experience? 

Really, we're mostly full of crap. The best cars, in our minds, were the ones from when we were in high school, or perhaps a bit before, the ones we loved in our formative years as a gearhead. These modern cars simply aren't those cars.