7/15/08

Yesterday I left off with me taking Mr. Wiggly back to the shop after a visit to Automotive Machine. After parking Mr. Wiggly, I hopped back into Darth Versa, I really need a new name for that car now that it is a Renault Clio by the way, and fired it up. The “Service engine soon” light came on. I immediately called Thornhill to see if service was still open. I had an hour and a half to get there. I pulled into the service bay and was met by the service writer lady. She asked how they could help and I told her about the light. Now, I know a loose gas cap will throw a code. It was one of the first things I thought of when the light came on. But I also “knew” I always put the cap on nice and tight. Always, without exception. She asked if I'd filled up recently. I said I had about a hundred miles ago but was sure I'd put the cap on. We popped the door and the cap was on. Ha ha! Vindicated! Unfortunately, when she grabbed it to check, she said it did feel loose. Crap. She put it back on and said, “Yeah, it was definitely loose before.” Double crap. She said to drive it about fifty more miles and the light should go off. I said I would and began to take off. I saw my sales dude walking by and called him over. I asked if they had any CVT Versæ I could show to mom. I fibbed a little and said she was interested in saving some gas. He said he thought they did have one and that he’d meet me up front. I began to pull around when I remembered the automatic window on the driver’s side. I pulled back in and they showed me how to reset that after a battery disconnection. I almost called John to tell him I now knew the secret to making the automatic windows worked then remembered his car has crank windows. How cute. Oh wait, it’s Gregg I razz about my car being more equipped than his. Sorry John, didn’t mean to bust yer balls like that. Anyhoo, I pull around front and go in to see if Bo has a CVT Versa. He asks his lackey, the same one Gregg raked over the coals when I brought him in to negotiate the Altima Coupe deal, to go look for me. They did have a white SL Hatch. It was virtually identical to Darth Versa except white and no sunroof. Oh, and it had a CVT instead of a six-speed. A six-speed, that still cracks me up. He hands me the keys and we do a little “boiler-plate” legal photocopying, things like license and insurance card, stuff like that. That’s the nice thing about being a repeat offend… um, I mean customer, they tend to trust you with a brand new car on occasion. So I head out and go looking for mom. I thought she might still be at the church, so I head that direction. My first impression of the CVT was, “Wait, did I just feel it shift?” because I thought I felt it shift when I pulled out of the parking spot. Subsequent “shifts” were not felt so I wrote the sensation off to a surface irregularity in the parking lot. When I got a gap in traffic to jump on 183/Alta Mere, I give her some gas. The engine revs up to about 4,000 rpm and holds there as the car accelerates. At speed I ease off the gas and the engine slows back down. I turn onto Hwy 80/Camp Bowie West/Spur 580 and head towards the church. I'm a little too concerned with keeping my sweaty leg from touching the door panel to really appreciate, if that is the right word, the transmission and its performance. I find mom and show her the car. I tell her that since the official story is, “I’m looking at it for her,” I needed to at least show it to her. She was really worn out from a garage sale they were having and I knew she could barely see straight because of it so I said we’d look at the car some other time. I went on to say that I really just wanted to see how that CVT drove. She said she understood and looked at the car a bit anyway. She liked the white exterior but not the dark grey interior. I said I'd see about a tan interior and sent her home. I decided to go ahead and take the freeway back to Thornhill. I hopped on I-30 and drove west. Thornhill’s exit came too soon so I went on to the Loop 820 south exit. Oh, this time I did pay more attention to how the CVT drove. It was sort of like the sensation of driving a car with low automatic transmission fluid or a slipping torque converter, but not quite. When you hit the gas, the engine revved up and held there. The car then accelerated to catch up but it was smoother and more seamless than that sounds. When I took the Loop 820 exit and the subsequent Hwy 80/Camp Bowie West/Spur 580 exit, I took the “Tim Around” (the little U-turn thingy that avoids the traffic light at some intersections which doesn’t seem to have a name so I named it after myself just like I did with the “Tim Off” right turn thingy at similar intersection which also avoids the traffic light) and got back on the freeway. Here was where the CVT got really weird. I got into the gas pretty good to see how well she’d accelerate, not bad I'd say. The engine revved up to about 4,500 or so and the car scooted on up to speed. As freeway speed approached, I began to ease off the throttle. The revs dropped but the car kept accelerating! The car sensed I still wanted to go faster but not at the same rate of acceleration. The revs dropped to 3,500 while I kept speeding up to around 65 miles per hour. I eased off a little more and everything stabilized to around 3,000 rpm at 65 mph or so. Oh, the “Tim Around” did point out the “wet noodle” handling of a stock Versa on skinny tires at tippy-toe ride height so I eased off a little more for the exit back onto I-30. I took it back to the dealer and handed the keys in. I told them that she liked it except for the interior. I said if they get a light colored CVT Versa with a tan interior in to give me a call. I'm sure she won’t be buying one, or trading in her Altima actually, anytime soon but we’ll see. I left the dealer in Darth Versa with the plan being to drive out to FM 5 for a hoon to reset the check engine light. I got to about the point where Hwy 80/Camp Bowie West/Spur 580 splits off of I-30 when the light went off. Dang it, it was the gas cap after all. I kept going and had my hoon. Gregg called and I told him about choosing Explodotron as Shi-Chi’s flywheel and that was when we decided I'd go to Summit and buy a transmission blanket. Of course I didn’t actually do it until talking to y'all yesterday but that’s neither here nor there. I'm pretty sure I didn’t do anything the rest of the evening except go to Taco Bueno with mom for dinner. I'll tell y'all about Sunday tomorrow.