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Thread: George's Garage

  1. #141
    Administrator dodint's Avatar
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    At least the high beams are not on the floor.

  2. #142
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    Well, not yet. I just ordered the Floor Mount Dimmer Switch, Honda part number RTS593-3...

    Nah, just kidding.

    Was cleaning out my phone earlier and found more foolishness that you guys might like. Now, I had that Accord for eleven and a half years. Every year I get a sticker for the next year to put on the license plate when I renew the registration. Weirdo that I am, I like to remove the license plate to clean it, front and back, and clean the area behind the plate that seldom sees the light of day. Then I carefully remove the old sticker and apply the new one. When I was younger and had more free time, I even waxed all the surfaces involved.

    Well, a few years ago, it became apparent that the screws were seized in place. I gave up on removing the plate and just removed and applied stickers each year without removing the plate. That worked fine until it was time to take my plates off the Accord.



    The screw on the right snapped in half. Sorry, future owner! And I never did get the left one off. I ended up twisting the plate around enough to enlarge the hole in the plate by bending the metal a little bit. I think I can flatten it back out when it's time to install these on the Ridgeline. If not, I'll get new plates, I suppose.



    Do people grease the screws to prevent this? That's standard in bicycle repair but it never occurred to me to grease license plate screws/bolts.

  3. #143
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    This Saturday will mark four months of Ridgeline ownership. I've put around 3000 miles on it, installed fresh wiper blades, wiper fluid, and Weathertech floor mats (front mats are great but the rear ones are just okay). Also bought what I think is a better tire gauge than the old "stick in a tube" I've probably had since the eighties.

    I haven't washed it yet. Hoping CudaMan might drop by and give it some elbow grease.

    But, it lives in a garage at home and in a parking garage when I'm at work and it rains so seldom here that it looked clean for months, except for brake dust on the front wheels. Then I drove it to the airport in a snowstorm a couple weeks ago. That plus more snow since then has it looking pretty filthy now. You know when you open the door to get in and then need to wash your hands that it's time to wash the car.

    Have a road trip coming up in about ten days, but not in the Ridgeline. Will be driving from South Carolina to Colorado. Maybe will have some items of interest to share afterwards. Haven't decided on a route yet and am hoping to just drive until I'm tired and then find a room each night - maybe two nights? We'll see. I could eat one of those free 72-ounce steaks at The Big Texan restaurant in Amarillo, or perhaps I'll go the northern route and see things I haven't seen before, such as the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and scenic Kansas. Wish I had more time so I could maybe see some live music in Nashville or whatever else I might stumble upon in this huge land. But that's life, right? If only I had more time...

    Oh yeah, Ridgeline stuff...

    Old license plates pictured above worked just fine. The rear one straightened out very well after I "stretched" one of the holes a bit getting it off the Accord.

    Damn seatbelt alarm drives me nuts, and I'm not smart enough to have changed my habits yet. I never noticed it in decades of driving, but apparently I do not reach for the seatbelt until after I start rolling forward. At home, I back out of the garage into the street, and that alarm goes off the second I put it in Drive and touch the gas. I also dislike the automatic door locks. All four doors lock automatically about the same time the seatbelt alarm starts blaring and then I find myself locked in later on when I want to get out. Pulling the interior door handle doesn't unlock the door. And, the Unlock button only unlocks the driver's door unless you press it twice. I now park with the driver's side nearest the garage wall, so I'm often trying to get in from the passenger side to load or unload things and the passenger side doors are always locked. Naturally, at these times, the key is always upstairs in my bedroom.

    Other than these very minor gripes, I'm quite happy with it. Our old washing machine died the first weekend I had it. The appliance salesman at Home Depot couldn't seem to understand why I didn't want their FREE home delivery in only FIVE DAYS. I brought the new one home that day, installed it, and then drove the old one down to a used appliance store that took it off my hands. I found a nice hitch-mounted 4-bicycle rack from craigslist and a free - yes FREE - Honda bed extender that I haven't installed yet. Not sure I will unless there's a need for it, but I bought the inexpensive installation kit from Honda so I can if I want to.

    Now that it's dark here by 5:00 PM, I love being up above the death-ray of modern headlights that used to blind me from behind at stop lights in the Accord. I can't decide if I like the daytime running lights or not. I prefer to be in control of such things, but I guess they might help people see me and therefore not crash into me. I also think it's fun to get in or out through the passenger door sometimes in the garage. Couldn't do that in the Accord or the Camry I had before that without dislocating a hip due to the center consoles.

    Oh, and I was wrong about the dampened glove box door. It doesn't matter, but mine is dampened, and I think there's a light in there too at night. Fancy! I saw the snooty remark about un-dampened glove box doors (oh, the horror!) in a YouTube video about Ridgelines, but that must have been for the 2006 - 2008 models. 2009 and later models had a bunch of improvements (or at least changes). One such change is same-size wiper blades, which I noticed while checking the wiper blade book at the auto parts store. The earlier models had two different sizes of wiper blades, as did my Accord.

    I read a lot about these trucks before buying one (except about TMPS; more on that below) and one thing I kept seeing in comments was that people keep finding new and cool things about the vehicle long after they bought it. Here's one of mine: the rear floor is flat and there are hooks near near the top of the back of the center console. These are perfect for hooking grocery bags on so the bagged groceries don't go rolling around or fall off seats in case of sudden braking.

    I'm still hoping to get the windows tinted when I have a little "mad money" and snow tires and a set of spare wheels also. I like the stock Honda steel wheels the base model came with better than any aftermarket ones I've seen, and there are two sets of those on my local craigslist right now, but I need to educate myself on TPMS monitors. I haven't taken the time yet.

    Are these something I should buy in case I need them for a second set of wheels or if one of mine dies, etc.? If anyone feels like commenting on why or why not, I'd be grateful. Yeah, I know I can (and should) google it. This ad has been up since I bought the car in July and is reposted every few weeks. I don't know if that means this isn't a smart buy or maybe people just don't go looking for these on craigslist.

    4 Honda Tire Pressure Monitoring Sensor (4) TPMS - $45

    "Honda Tire Pressure Monitoring Sensor (4) TPMS
    they were on a 2012 Honda Ridgeline i sold the truck
    have no need for them
    should work on all Honda models but not 100% sure
    all 4 worked as they should when installed
    Asking 45.00 for the set of 4"




    Last edited by George; November 14th, 2019 at 03:13 PM.

  4. #144
    Quote Originally Posted by George View Post
    I haven't washed it yet.
    You can probably see me cringing from there. But something about it being a truck makes it seem more okay...

    I would guess you could get the dealer to code the locks to not come on automatically, or to automatically unlock when you put the vehicle in Park. Or, perhaps, there might be a secret menu or cheat code to change that yourself. Anything in this video help? Anything in your manual or quick start guide? I'm with you on locks being weird these days. I thought my BMW's on-trunk trunk release button was faulty. It turned out that by design it won't release the trunk from the outside unless all the door locks are unlocked. Having only the driver door unlocked (one click of the remote) isn't enough.

    And I hear ya on modern headlights. I feel like the industry or lawmakers should look at this and start testing for glare, visibility when oncoming, or vision issues from these newer lights. They improve visibility at night for the drivers of them, but for oncoming traffic or using mirrors to merge, they make things more difficult. I need a job -- how to I appoint myself head of lighting safety research to solve this problem?

    I know next to nothing about TPMS...

  5. #145
    Administrator dodint's Avatar
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    TPMS sensors use Lithium Ion batteries that have an operational life of 5-10 years. The 45,000 miles thing isn't really a factor. Those are 7 years old. Buying them to shelve them wouldn't really be the best move as they may fail soon after installing them. If you needed one now, yeah, it's a decent deal. They cost ~$50 new each, maybe more if our local shop wants to gouge you.

    Do what I do and run vehicles old enough not to have TPMS.

  6. #146
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CudaMan View Post
    You can probably see me cringing from there.
    Yeah, I figured you'd fall out of your chair when you read that. I used to be a detailin' fool when I was younger and had more time but there's usually something more important to do these days.

    Anything in this video help?
    Cool! Will watch that in full later. Thanks.

    Quote Originally Posted by dodint
    Buying [7-year-old TPMS sensors] to shelve them wouldn't really be the best move as they may fail soon after installing them.
    Thanks!

    Do what I do and run vehicles old enough not to have TPMS.
    I held out as long as I reasonably could. Maybe in the future I can get myself an old squarebody Suburban or something.
    Last edited by George; November 15th, 2019 at 10:10 AM.

  7. #147
    Electrical tape over the TPMS light also works.

  8. #148
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    ^ sounds like something that Click & Clack, the Tappet brothers, would suggest.

    I assume not having TPMS sensors in such a modern car would cause other problems, somehow. I got that idea from reading about the seatbelt alarm and other stuff online. Someone said you could stick a metal paper clip in the seat belt receiver somewhere to keep the alarm from going off for just moving cars around on one's own property, driving in a parking lot, etc. Someone else said you could remove a fuse to prevent the daytime running lights from being on all the time.

    Then the replies came in along the lines of "modern cars have all the different systems connected, so the airbags might fail to deploy because it thinks there's no one in the seat if you mess with the seatbelt latches" or something like that. I'm not going to bypass my seatbelt alarm or DRLs anyway, but just relating what I've read. And we all know everything on the internet is true, right?

    Speaking of modern cars, here's another angry old man rant. Had a Nissan Altima rental car a couple days ago. Locked the doors. Came back to the car and opened the driver's door with the key. The alarm went off. WTF? I used the key! It's not like I broke a window or something. Sigh...

    Well, I'm in South Carolina and soon to be the owner of a 2016 Subaru Forester with 22,8xx miles. I just put gas in it and saw this on the left right/passenger-side rear tire. Good thing the fuel door is on the "wrong" side of the car.



    Here's the left right/passenger-side front for comparison. There's a big scratch on fender above the tire.



    Looks like I'll be buying tires. Just got a quote for $508.72 for a set of four Hankooks.

    I'm guessing these were rotated and the bald edge came from the front originally, but I'm amazed this kind of wear could have happened in only 23K miles. The car was definitely not autocrossed or otherwise abused. Maybe AWD cars eat tires even more quickly than FWD ones? I guess I'll find out in time. Or, it just dawned on me that maybe original equipment tires are the cheapest available to maximize profit. That's probably it, now that I think about it.

    For what it's worth, the Forester's alarm goes off if I use the key to open the driver's door also. Well, I figured out how to get around that when I got gas today - I left the driver's door unlocked. Hah! Beat 'em at their own game, old-school style!

    Nope. When I opened the door, the alarm went off. I don't really care, as nobody pays attention to car alarms these days (if they ever did), but why the hell does the alarm go off if the door is unlocked? Rhetorical question - not asking for answers, but I don't like it. It seems worse than having no alarm at all (which I'd certainly prefer).

    Oh, and one last grumpy old man rant: In both the rental car and the Forester, if I plug in my iPhone to charge, it turns off the radio I was listening to and gives me a menu of crap I don't want. I just want to charge my phone while listening to the radio. Is that so much to ask for? Another rhetorical - don't bother; but if I can't beef about this stuff here, then where?



    Edited 'coz I doesn't know me lefts from me rights sometimes...
    Last edited by George; November 19th, 2019 at 07:31 AM.

  9. #149
    We got you George.

    In modern cars physical keys are just for emergency use only, for when the battery in the car or in the remote is completely dead. So I am not surprised at the alarm reaction. I *am* surprised that the Forester alarm went off when you returned to open an unlocked door. I can't figure that one out. My parents have a '14 Forester that seems pretty normal. It even has a metal key that permanently protrudes from the fob, rather than a hide-a-key inside the fob. My parents still haven't figured out how to cycle through the status screens on the little display at the top of the dashboard. Oh, and just wait until you have to set the clock in the Forester. :evil laugh:

    That tire wear does look like autocross wear. If the tire was recently flipped on the wheel, and that wear occurred when that part of the tire was on the inside, it's probably from the toe being off. But usually the wear wouldn't be confined that much to the inner edge of the tire - there'd be some wear nearer the middle, too, given how little camber the Forester should have (in other words, the wheels and tires are straight up and down). Is there wear on the other side of the bad tire, too? If so that could indicate very low tire pressure used for a long time, but that'd surprise me with TPMS these days...

    Some cars will do things like force TC/VSC/ESC on when TPMS sensors are missing or reading low. I don't know what else they would do, I'm sure they wouldn't disable ABS or anything like that. My 350Z just blinked the dash light at you. It didn't care otherwise. None of my wheels for that car had sensors. While we're ranting, my BMW does the silliest thing: when I turn on DTC (Dynamic Traction Control - which allows just a little more play before intervening), it will not allow cruise control to be engaged. Twice I thought my cruise switch was broken for a second, until I realized what I had done, BMW assuming I'm a numbskull who forgets how to steer or use the throttle if I voluntarily turn off the more aggressive TC default. Modern vehicles shame us all into believing we can't handle anything.

    On charging your phone - put one of these in the car and use it instead of the built-in USB. [Look at you all fancy with your modern tech - USB in a car!]

  10. #150
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    Thanks.

    Quote Originally Posted by CudaMan View Post
    Oh, and just wait until you have to set the clock in the Forester. :evil laugh:
    Funny you mention that. The clock is still on Daylight Savings Time and I have no idea how to change it. I pressed the Menu button and looked through all the stuff on the screen, but there was nothing about Clock or Time or anything similar that I could see. The clock in the Accord had little buttons for hour and minute. That was so simple that even a caveman could do it! I think the Ridgeline has a Clock button on the radio and I just pressed that and then turned the dial to set the clock when we went back to Standard Time.

    Why do they have to make things so damn complicated?! Ain't NO way however they have it rigged up now is better than a manually-adjustable clock.

    [scroll back up to picture of Abe Simpson]

    Oh, by the way, I had convinced myself the Forester didn't have a USB port and only a lighter/power-port. Then I found it later by accident. It's down inside the between-seats console. There are little notches under the armrest to allow cables to come out with the console closed. Not a bad design, once I discovered it.
    Last edited by George; November 19th, 2019 at 08:50 AM.

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