philosophyonwheels.com

Spring is creeping around the corner, and it couldn’t have come any sooner (thank you very much Mr. Punxsutawney Phil).  I certainly welcome the spring, but there are two things I am always loathe to see return.

The first is allergies.  These are just about the most inane things that I have to deal with in my life.  There’s the sneezing, the stuffiness, the scratchy eyes, the running nose, and the cough.  And of course every five out of six TV commercials is from some pharmaceutical company showing how beautiful and glamorous allergies can be.  I end up making nearly a dozen trips down to my closest pharmacy to try and come up with the magic mixture of medicine which will get me through this 10 weeks of hell.  And I always find it, but only after nine and a half weeks.

The other thing I don’t look forward to in the spring is the reemergence of potholes.  Mankind has accomplished many great things: we have iPhones, bananas in New England, and even put a retired U.S. Senator in space.  But we have still not figured out a way to keep the snow from eating three foot holes into the highway!  Come on!  (How about instead of the Moon, we need to “choose [to eradicate potholes] not because it is easy, but because it is NECESSARY!”)

Maybe it’s just a matter of time before someone figures out the correct ratios and ingredients for a new tarmac or asphalt.  We should all be racking our brains and trying different things out while we cite the infinite monkey theorem.  Mix the concrete with saffron or lace the asphalt with banana peals.  Oh hell, try putting the concrete on top of the snow and see if that makes a difference.

And all spring we get to partake in the recreation of pothole avoidance.  It’s one of those feel-good sports where everyone thinks they’re better than average.  There are of course the basic techniques.  Before an unavoidable pothole you can inhale quickly to help make the car lighter and glide over the gaping abyss.  Grimacing and breathing in sharply through your teeth will invariably lessen any damage to your car.  Some of the more advanced techniques include the “short & precise swerve” where a pothole is avoided while staying in the same lane.  After every direct hit of a pothole it is necessary look into your dashboard with worrying eyes while apologizing.

Or in the spirit of the current political climate and all things socialist, let’s print money and stuff the potholes full.

In all things sport related I am always looking for that extra competitive advantage.  GPS systems with traffic avoidance and detouring software are already commonplace on high-end models of cars.  I’m sure that integrating some kind of pothole database wouldn’t be too difficult.  Then those Google camera vans could drive around mapping the locations and dimensions of every pothole, and include pictures.  GPS options could include routes with the least or most amounts of potholes, or a weekend excursion could be to visit the largest mapped pothole in the state.  Sweet.
Bring on the potholes.  My eyes are itchy, my nose is running, but I’m ready for whatever is out there.  I love spring.

If you currently live anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere at latitudes greater than 35 degrees, by now you have hopefully caught an initial taste of the impending spring.  (We hope that it’s impending.  Remember that past performance is not indicative of future results.)

Winter is truly a cruel mistress especially to the psyche.  It affects everyone on some level and we all figure out our own way to cope.  At some point we withdraw to our living rooms with greater frequency, and spend inordinate amounts of time absorbing more TV programming than usual.  And then we hit some threshold for how pasty our skin feels and it suddenly becomes clear that watching political pundits and their talk-shows is a good use of our time.  In January this seems perfectly normal but you’d never even consider this in July.  (Aside: I really enjoy watching Glenn Beck.  You just have to not think about what he’s saying.  And he is truly a master craftsman of the chalkboard.)

But sure signs do gradually appear marking the end of winter’s SAD inducing grip.  For me, it always starts on a single Sunday in March where I’ve woken up to find that I’ve lost an hour … magically.  And the next week is a tortuous adjustment to this temporal disturbance.  But by the following week it’s evident that there is more than 3 hours of light in a day, and I’m not relying on my headlights to drive home from work.  I’ve survived another winter.

My friends can also be good indicators of spring.  One has started a discussion on MyFace about whether his new brake rotors should be slotted or cross-drilled.  Another friend caved in to the undeniable testosterone laden primal urge to procure a car with more than 350 horsepower: specifically an Audi S4, dressed in Imola Yellow.  Mmm, power.

Last week I realized that my car could use a good spring cleaning.  I started by removing my winter floor-mats which are 100% rubber and smell 100% like a day care center.  Once the mats were removed I found several inches of dirt, gravel and sand.  As anyone knows who has done this job, no ordinary vacuum will suffice to clean this up.  I drove down to a local car-wash with the huge industrial vacuum cleaners.  There were two options: for $1 I could have the normal “2-motor Vacuum,” or for just 50¢ more I could have the “Super 3-motor Vacuum.”  As I sucked up the layers of debris, it was almost like an archeological discovery as I could recognize certain events from the ebbing winter.  I identified 2 ski trips, a stop at a nearby beach, and a snowstorm in Boston.

I then turned my attention to the dashboard, and used some GuardingArmor to give the interior that showroom floor shine.  Just a word of warning: don’t apply this stuff to any control surface (i.e. a steering wheel) because it can become slippery and hard to handle, or extremely hard to handle.

Looking at the windshield I realized there were three parking or inspection stickers which had long expired.  I managed to peel them off with the help of a razor blade, but much of the adhesive still remained.  Google told me the best way to clean this up was to purchase some ‘denatured alcohol’ and scrub it off.  But the greeter at Home Depot had a lot of trouble with the word alcohol, almost as if he was a teetotaler and had convinced himself that it no longer existed.  He did point me in the direction of some Mötsenböcker’s Lift Off #2 Tape Remover.  This stuff is magic and I highly recommend it.  Think of it as bottled easy.

So now I’m all ready for spring with a clean interior.  Next week I’ll be taking care of the secondary stuff like changing the oil and tightening a belt.  Between now and then maybe I’ll sneak in just one more hour of Glenn Beck and say goodbye to the pundits before I welcome in the summer.

Magnetorheological damping is a badass technology.  (Pronunciation tutorial: Lead villain in X-Men: The Last Stand…”Magneto.”  Really old MP3 player…”Rio.”  Spock’s favorite word…”logical.”  Put ‘em together: “Magneto”…”Rio”…”logical”.  Sweet.)  There’s no coincidence that the pronunciation tutorial came up with three examples plucked from geekdom, these shock absorbers are science-fiction level cool.  Though usually only found on high-end cars, it’s a technology worth understanding for the effect of appreciation.  Perhaps a bit of a refresher on shock absorbers is needed.

Shock absorbers.  It’s one of those pieces of technology we each depend on every time we drive our cars but their praise is never sung.  And as long they are functioning properly the ride is smooth they don’t need a fleeting thought.  Usually the only time they are ever mentioned is in a sentence spoken with extreme irritation or disappointment (i.g. “The mechanic had to replace my shocks”).  

The wheels on a car are not mounted in a fixed position.  (That would be a VERY bumpy ride.)  Between the wheel and the car is a heavy duty spring.  It allows the wheel to make two corrective movements.  

1) If the car hits a bump in the road, the wheel will be forced up toward the car to lessen the upward movement for the car and its occupants.  

2)If the car hits a pothole, the spring will force the wheel down (faster than gravity) into the void to catch the vehicle and control its “fall”.  

The problem with a spring is that it oscillates.  If a spring were attached to the ceiling with a weight, and someone pulled the weight down and released it, the spring would probably bob up and down (oscillate) for a minute or two.  Various forms of friction (such as wind resistance) slow the weight down and eventually bring it to a standstill.  The friction is damping the spring system to bring it a halt.  This is exactly what shock absorbers do.  Shocks absorbers damp energy from the spring to bring the entire system to a motionless equilibrium.

Usually mounted inside of the spring, shock absorbers look like a telescoping tube.  Inside the tube is a combination of oil and gas separated by some pistons.  The gas will expand and contract, but oil does not.  As the piston moves inside the damper, oil rushes past it and produces friction proportional to the viscosity (thickness) of the oil.  (The higher the viscosity the stronger the friction.)  This friction is the fundamental damping force.

Now what if the viscosity of the oil in the damper could be changed on the fly?  The suspension would no longer be passive and would be considered semi-active.  Magnetorheological dampers contain oil with special particles suspended in the fluid.  When these particles are excited by a magnetic field, they tend to clump together and this clumping greatly increases the experienced viscosity.  

So when is it preferable to have greater viscosity in the dampers?  In racing situations it’s preferred to sacrifice comfort for quicker response from the suspension.  With just the flick of a finger, a sport mode can be activated which turns on electromagnets in the dampers and instantly delivers a stiffer and sportier ride.  And it’s just as easy to switch back for the more comfortable ride.

What car do you pick up to experience magnetorheological dampers?  I recommend the Cadillac XLR.  This technology is on a number of different sports cars, but only the XLR looks like it deserves dampers from Geordi La Forge’s garage.  Kudos Cadillac.

I wish I could say exactly how it feels to drive with magneto dampers, but I will admit I have never had the pleasure.  I then appeal to any of my readers to entrust their XLR to me for one day to enable one of my car reviews.  (I prefer “Radiant Silver” but would be willing to drive “Elektra Blue Tintcoat.”)