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RE: Guaranteed to save on fuel. No Scam.
That is almost as good of an idea as the #1 way to save fuel. Drive less. How ingenious!
Lower your food bill too.... eat less
Lower your water bill ... use less
Lower your electric bill, turn off the breaker.
This sounds like a political post from the Green Party. Is that allowed?
:E
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horton333
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04/24/08 01:55pm |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: Future MPG laws?
As someone who bought a TDI when it was the only game in town and quite enjoy it, I am looking forward to even more diesels to choose from.
Thanks for the link, should have known it was the CARB. I'm assuming a bit here, but as I understand it Canada is not nearly as tough on NO2 as CARB and New York state, and having two N/A models I guess was just too much.
Now if they only made the Jetta a little prettier, maybe some competition will help that and I really like the engineering on Honda's too so let's see how all that shapes up. Till then I think the bike is where it's at for good gas milage for me, with my other three vehicals all V8s these days gas milage is *almost* becoming a consideration.
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horton333
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04/24/08 06:21am |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: Future MPG laws?
A diesel LR Defender is probably more than enough for most SUV owners, and they get almost 30 mpg. Put that 130hp 4 cyl in a modern aerodynamic CUV and you'd easily see 35 mpg.
But unfortunately, most North Americans look at 130hp with disgust in their eyes...
And the CARB hates diesels so they almost regulated them out of existance in everything but trucks.
I think there are a lot of people who would buy moderate horsepower diesels, I see a lot of TDIs on the roada and they are not cheap and - yes personal opinion - they look ugly. At this time the only diesel you can buy in anything like an economy car is in the volkwagon. Wait a minute, for whatever reason Volkwagon has temporarily halted selling TDIs, at the same time the price is through the roof.
And yes when the Smart car went to the much less efficient gas motor Canada lost the diesel option there. Wait a minute, till late in the summer there is no economy diesel for sale in a new car here!
Must be those big oil criminals :W
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horton333
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04/23/08 07:59pm |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: Future MPG laws?
Personally I think the new standards are a joke, 2015 and 2020? C'mon, they should be able to do that now, or at least in the next year or two.
The 'Smart Car' (what a lie in advertising) sold a few thousands in Canada and with 2 seats and a 40 horsepower of diesel it gets great milage (let's ignore it was also a heavy polluter and was twice the price of a larger car). They can do it, but would people buy it? Should people buy it? In the case of the 'Smart Car' the CARB and New York state would not even let them be sold in their part of the US.
How many tens of thousands of 5 passenger cars are sold, for that matter look how many people are driving a 6.0 litre truck to work (guy beside me does, and he has twice the distance to commute)?
Anyway quiting time, I'm off on my 3.6 seconds to 100 kilometer/ transport that gets better gas milage than the smart car. Ya the bike becomes less of a toy every day. :-0 Maybe I can even justify the new K1200R I've been looking at and do it in a half second less.
Varoooooooooooooooooooooooom.
:B
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horton333
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04/23/08 03:03pm |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: Wow has everyone quit driving ?
It's going to be a lonely summer.
The praries is still digging out from the snow, spring is June this year, give it a month or two :W
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horton333
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04/23/08 01:54pm |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: OPEC says oil price is not supply & demand
I just read somewhere that last year, less new oil was discovered than was consumed. One wonders how close we are to the tipping point where demand starts exceeding supply.
The province of Alberta has enough to supply the entire world for over a century with $100/ oil. After an inital spike of interest the investment is actually now dropping as the government takes it's huge and even worse unpreditable tax grab (Chavez would be proud); the federal government passed 'Green' legislation on the production facilities, the province puts natural gas off limits and business people just give up in frustration.
Just one case of why supply is so low.
There are similar situations in several other areas. It't not lack of reserves, a lot is the political barriers.
The tar sands in Alberta span a known area larger than the state of Florida, if they bothered to explore they would find more. Oh and Sask has large depostis too.
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horton333
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04/22/08 03:56pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: OPEC says oil price is not supply & demand
No way to take the bet, but we are already using less and the price has not been affected at all. If we used 10% less, we'd get 10% more excuses for kneejerk price hikes (gunboats, militants, hurricanes, cold weather, refinery capacity, dead battery in the doomaflochy. One thing for sure using less doesn't cause the price to go down, because if it did, it would, and it hasn't. So drive your RV all you want if you can afford to. :)
The overall demand has continued to go up, I was discussing the 'royal we' with that 10% - i.e. global demand. Just because one person is using 10% less means nothing since there are 5 other people in the world who just bought their first car last week .....
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horton333
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04/21/08 09:34pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: OPEC says oil price is not supply & demand
I've read with interest the posts about the value of the US dollar being the root cause of the high oil prices. IF, that were the case then would it not be logical to think that here in Canada, where our dollar is strong, that the price of fuel would be SIGNIFICANTLY less than that in the US?
Well there is these pesky things called taxes, which are much higher in Canada .....
Do you remember when the price of oil was going from $65/ to almost $100 the price of gas at the pump stayed at $1.00 per litre in Canada throught that whole period. Yes the U.S. dollar did a massive nose dive and that is part of what is going on when you read the price of oil which tends to be quoted in US dollars. there is a long thread here on rv.net with the facts well discussed.
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horton333
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04/21/08 09:31pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: OPEC says oil price is not supply & demand
Even the OPEC chief says price is not related to supply & demand anymore.
Do you not think they may have a strong vested interest in saying this clearly wrong statement.... with over a trillion dollars flowing thier way this year due to high oil prices :h
There are aspects where there is not a direct link between supply and demand, like the lack of refineries but that does not drive oil prices. If the world was to use 10% less oil next month (May) then the price would be $50/barrel in June. I'll places bets with anyone on that and even give odds.
For those who remember how OPEC got started, recall it was the sons of the locals in the middle east who sent their kids to England to learn economics and they got taught how oil was a classically inelastic demand curve. then they went back home and the dads were looking for a way to pressure the west and ... well the rest is history.
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horton333
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04/21/08 02:53pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Towing with an Explorer/Mountaineer
Boy oh Boy is this ever going to get me in trouble, LOL.
Only with people to whom this is an emotional, as opposed to an engineering, discussion. :W
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horton333
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04/04/08 06:29am |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: Are The New CAFE Standards a Cruel Joke?
Be careful what you ask or wish for. Would you like to fill out a justification form to purchase any vehicle or purchase a home of a certain square footage? Oh, and to have children? Remember, these social engineering rules are a standard part of some economies.
With freedom comes responsibility. Conversely, with responsibility comes freedom.
What was that you wanted?
No: not what I wanted! I wanted freedom, what I got was ..... well best keep politics for another type of forum eh? :B
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horton333
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04/03/08 07:31pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Are The New CAFE Standards a Cruel Joke?
Unfortunately, in our nice free country, we can't force people to buy cars properly suited to their actual use. So the only way to get the masses off of big gas gusslers is to reulate them out of existance.
Hum - so regulation (backed by huge penalties and enforcement infastructure) is not forcing them? :h
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horton333
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04/03/08 01:26pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Towing with an Explorer/Mountaineer
What year - there is a lot of chassis differences between the years.
I have a 2003 Explorer with the V8 and I'm towing a 30' toyhauler that weighs between 6.5 and 7.5 k# depending on what's in it and it tows very well; much better in windy conditions than many a 5th wheel I've meet on the road.
I did find it a bit lose with only friction sway bars in the rain given the short wheelbase and I went to a Hensley Arrow which was well worth the money and a lot easier to adjust than chains I find. I am fussy, you don't have to spend the extra if you don't want to. The stock tires had very weak sidewalls, I changed to slightly undersized Goodyear Fortera Triple Treads and that made a big difference, even solo there was a noticeable improvement. Other tires with more rigid sidewalls than stock would help equally as well. I run them at their 44# max.
The stock hitch flexes a bit back to forth and so the weight distribution will not work as well as it can unless you weld in some braces to hold it rigid, nothing fancy is needed. After that with the short wheelbase is an advantage to move the weight forward and get any balance you want. I found only slightly less 'down' on the front than back works best, which is more forward weight than most people would use.
Have fun, but this is not a 'no brainer' like an F350 so set it up right with weight distribution and sway control.
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horton333
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04/02/08 02:59pm |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: boosting TV charge rate
my high quality charger is a fully automatic 50/10/2 and is rated on the back label the same it says input 120v AC 60HZ 0.5/2/8 Amps. Hmmm doesn't that seem low? 2 amps AC to charge 10 amps DC? i forget the equations my father taught me as a boy. how many watts will that be? i have an 800/1600 watt coleman fan cooled inverter that i am very impressed with. 10 amps on 3-5 hours will fully charge a medium sized battery so says the box.
Rob
(120 volts x 2 amps) * .85 = ~200 watts output available at DC.
This is ~15 amps at 14 volts for charging. I'm assuming 85% converter efficiency above so the input current of 2 Amps is conservative for the 10 amps output.
10 amps is not a lot to charge a decent sized battery, you should plan on supporting the 50 Amp rate and while your inverter would do this this may be a strain on your alternator depending on it's output. Make sure the invertor is wired with very thick wire and the run has to be short. Also: don't forget most alternators are rated for occasional use, and their output rating is a maximum number only and is nowhere near what your going to see at low RPMs.
The 15% loss in the converter is likely less than what your going to lose in a long run @ 12 volts and a big adantage is the charger can be right beside the battery so there is no issue with voltage drop typically severely limits your bulk charging rate. I used this battery charger setup to gets lots of charge in quickly when driving and it was very effective at giving me a full charge even on a shorter driving day.
Be warned some battery chargers do not like modified sine wave inverters. I toasted the first one quickly but the replacement seem to work fine. I've never used it much at idle from the truck, I have a $130 low wattage generator for that.
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horton333
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03/31/08 11:43am |
Tech Issues
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RE: GM settles class action on DeathCool
Well it's a start. I see it doesn't apply to Canada, but I understand there is a class action suit ongoing up here.
Thanks:
This sounds like the same thing happened to me with my Intrigue, was one of the best cars actually and this was the only real unexpected work done in 300k (kilometers).
I was not aware there was a class action on this, it was several hundred dollars as I recall and the mechanic told me he did dozens so this must have been a design defect.
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horton333
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03/31/08 09:57am |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: Dodge Hybrid Engines
My understanding from some reviews is the tow rating is lower than the stock units largly as they streamlined to get better highway numbers and the cowl cuts down on the cooling air to the rad and hence the low rating.
If this is the limit I wonder if someone could work out something aftermarket....
The weight of the batteries and associated hybrid components is why the tow rating is reduced from the standard Tahoe.
If I'm not mistaken, the way the system is designed, the electric-drive motors are inactive when towing heavy, with the vehicle relying totally on the IC engine for such tasks.
The reports specifically say that the electrio motors start the pulling even with a full trailer load.
The downgrade in the pulling capacity is much larger than the weight of the batteries.
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horton333
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03/26/08 06:58pm |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: Theft and vandalism
I've never lost anything camping.
I deserved to in storage the time I left the side panel open into the storage box open for 3 weeks. Yow: it's hard to see in the dark after unhooking late at night in a hurry and many other lame excuses :S
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horton333
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03/26/08 02:40pm |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: Can I get 6 Volt Batteries in Denver for a reasonable price?
The 6v batteries went up 30 bucks in many places, in the last year or two. I think any price less than $100 just may be a good price anymore.
Lead is trading for $1.38/# U.S. dollars today. Kind of sets the lower point for something with 50#s or more of lead like these batteries.
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horton333
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03/26/08 02:09pm |
Tech Issues
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RE: Need new batteries - going AGM this time, need advice
I installed Lifeline AGMs back in '04 and would not go back to lead acid. I did a lot of research and decided on the Lifeline brand over others.
One thing, before you order, have 911 dialed on the phone. The prices of all batteries have gone thru the roof. Those 8Ds that I bought in '04 for $290 each are now $675! :E
Like a week ago I was quoted $837 plus tax for an 8D from lifeline dealer in Toronto. It would be an awsome battery and suit my use well but that is pretty rich even as the standard btteries are getting pricier.
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horton333
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03/26/08 11:18am |
Tech Issues
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RE: Dodge Hybrid Engines
My understanding from some reviews is the tow rating is lower than the stock units largly as they streamlined to get better highway numbers and the cowl cuts down on the cooling air to the rad and hence the low rating.
If this is the limit I wonder if someone could work out something aftermarket....
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horton333
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03/26/08 11:13am |
Tow Vehicles
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