Funnily enough, it used to be about $170, five or six or more years back, until it was more than doubled overnight in order to raise revenue, so Google tells me.

Kinda pointless really; being pulled over was the deterrent, not the fine.

So, now I get to wait ’til October or somesuch oddly distant date to find out what the consequences are. My bestest buddy Officer Friendly suggested I go with option C, the Driver Education Course. Though undoubtedly there will be compulsory fiscal consequences as well. Judging by what others have received for similar sorts of relatively inconsequential offences, I’d guess somewhere in the $40-$60 range. However, one must of course multiply by the Wade’s Bastard Fate factor, which brings the estimate up to around $170 or so, by my reckoning. We shall see.

In all seriousness though, it was more a moment of important sobering than upsetting or depressing or anything else. I have become complacent, largely because it’s usually the end of a long day where I’m typically mentally drained – physically as well, if I’ve been to the gym – and I tend to run on that autopilot that inexplicably thirsts to make it home at least seven seconds faster than… than… some, pointless, arbitrary measure. I dunno. I’m taking it as an important and, perhaps, timely warning.

So I’ve now asked them to reinstate it, having found out only on Monday that they really had cancelled it – I’d assumed, given I’d spoken to them and confirmed they now had all the info they required, it would all have been sorted. Ha.

But they’ve said that probably won’t happen before Thursday, if at all. Nice.

So, I’m going to run out of water by Thursday, and on the food front I’m down to a can of Spagosaurus and a pair of fish-cubes (kind of like frozen fish, except rectangular spam-like blobs… awesomely uninspiring to look at, but nonetheless tasty). The situation is indeed grim… I’m trying to save that Spagosaurus for a special occasion. :D

And then, with some bizarre sense of cosmic humour, today I got a $6 refund on the cancellation fee they apparently already charged me, unbeknownst to me. It’s the gift that keeps on giving..

Why do insurance companies suck so?

Anyway, I’ve been driving to work, which has reminded me both that traffic here sucks, and that I don’t like driving short distances. I like the feel of cruising out in big open spaces, not dodging retards determined to get to work 1.73 seconds faster at the mere cost of my life.

I passed, to cut to the chase. I lost 13 points; 15 being the limit for a pass. I think it was out of 60, from memory. It was a bit rough, though, as half of those points were for the same thing over and over again – not looking for psychotic American drivers trying to pass illegally on the left-hand side in a turning island. Yeah, you get that soooo often in normal driving. :/

But I passed, nonetheless, so I have a nice and shiny… er… scrap of.. paper… .. d’oh. For whatever reason they don’t actually provide you with your license there and then… but then I can’t remember how it was with my licenses in Australia; maybe that was the same.

Anyway, right now my car is filled with temporary paper – hand-written insurance form (which the DMV nearly didn’t accept), temporary license, still no license plates – they take six to eight weeks to arrive, apparently… I know there’s a 30-day leeway period after a private sale before you’re required to get plates, but, I’ve also heard that it really doesn’t matter whether you have them or not. Some cars don’t… lots don’t have a front number plate, just a back one; in California I think you’re only required to have a rear number plate.

But anyway, that’s all good, so I’m now all cosy resident and whatnot.. I did note though that I didn’t have to get a Californian license – if you’re a resident alien you can use your home country’s license indefinitely, provided you don’t “assume the responsibilities of a citizen” or some crap; i.e. vote, and whatnot. Which I didn’t think I could do anyway… but, whatever. :D

As one might imagine, I’m freaking out slightly, now that I’ve just signed away what seems like the better part of my paycheque. And what do I get for my lifetime of servitude?

Ooooh, shiny. :D

So I went down to the Keypoint credit union earlier, as they seem to offer the best loan rates I could find online, to try and get a more concrete quote. As it turns out, they don’t do quotes – you apply, and then they tell you what interest rate you got and how much you immediately owe them, and somesuch. Not wanting to go quite that all-out (hah!), I declined to apply. I then milled about for a few hours, playing Halo to try and release some stress (apparently I suck today, so that backfired), and writing irate journal entries. Finally I got up the initiative to wander over the road to the Honda dealership to go see what they offered for financing.

And there I ran into a fairly typical car dealer – why wait and think about your options when you can buy now! :) The first guy I dealt with was a little pushy, but, he was nice enough, and he was willing to wheel and deal, so I think in the end I actually got a half reasonable deal on the price of the car… or at least, I hope so… in any case, it came out a fair bit cheaper than I’d expected, such that my loan would be slightly lower. Sweet.

Unfortunately, the best interest rate he could offer me was 10.9%. Eeep. If you’ve got the credit rating for it, you can get loans at 5.25% from Keypoint. Unfortunately, as they were finally able to show me, I have no credit rating. I already knew I didn’t have enough, but they showed me the actual print out. I have nothing. It acknowledges that my social security number does exist, but there is not a single record against it. Which in a way is a good thing, because I was a little worried that Bank of America would try to screw me with the whole closing my account crap last year.

It confirmed though that I was going to get screwed no matter whom I borrowed from… so, after some haggling and trying to cut costs off a few places, I thought, you know, stuff it, I ain’t getting any younger, and I’d much rather be driving around tomorrow than riding between banks and crap (which wouldn’t be open, being a Sunday and all… bums). So I said what the hey.

It took nearly three hours, all up, to go through the paperwork… most of the time I was just waiting around inbetween signing things – I lost count, but I think I signed my full signature at least twenty times – and generally wondering what the hell I was doing. My sales dude Hamed – the second guy I spoke with and who took me through all the actual processing, whom I thought was a bit easier to deal with; more laid back; not overtly trying a hard sell – called in an insurance guy, and we went through and did that right there and then. So I now have insurance, and that came in at roughly $2k / year, I think (yeah, I know, scarily ignorant), which I’m happy with… I think if I’d been driving this car last year on my RACV insurance, it would have been similar if not even more. And it’s cheaper than any other quote I was able to get, and I’d exhausted the majority of my options already.

The loan itself is five years, which would be brutal at 10.9%, but I made very sure that interest was calculated off the principal monthly, and that I could pay it back at any rate I wanted (greater than or equal to the agreed monthly rate). So, my hope is I can knock a serious amount off it relatively quickly, and then let it long tail out where the interest isn’t so bad… I’m pretty confident I can get it all out of the way within two years, and maybe even closer to one year, with a bit of luck and general frugality.

Which of course is the problem… I’m of course wanting to travel a fair bit in the near future, and that’s expensive, no argument. At the least I want to get back to Australia before the end of this year. I was also hoping to get to Europe this year, but, I may have to take a rain-check on that. Going back to Australia is easy, as I’m at worst up for the airfare and general misc. expenses. So worst case that shouldn’t be a problem. But Europe… if I do that in addition to Australia, which was my original hope, then things would definitely be tight. I guess we’ll have to see how that goes… the financial part of my brain has been KO’d for today, but tomorrow I’ll add up all my flights of fancy and see where it puts me.

Maybe I’ll get a big bonus at work. ;) I had a dream, actually, a week or so ago where that happened. It was very weird. But I’m sure I’m not going to be seeing bonuses for a while yet; can’t let the newbies get their hopes up. :)

I also paid extra, at more or less the last minute, for the Honda Care and an alarm & immobiliser system (at least, I think there’s an immobiliser in there somewhere). I figure they’re worth it; the Honda Care provides roadside assistance (I also joined AAA anyway, so, I guess I can use both and just take whoever gets there first ;) ) and I was promised I wouldn’t have to pay a cent for any warranty issues for five years. No parts, no labour. And, apparently if you make no claims on that in the five years, you get every dollar back. Without interest, though, so you’re still technically paying a sizeable chunk of change, but, that sounds reasonable… I’m hoping I won’t have any problems with it while I have it, as I intend to sell it within a couple of years simply to try and keep ahead of the depreciation.

And the alarm just seemed like a good idea all round… car theft is fairly high, I understand, in the valley, because you’ve got plenty of poor people and way too many rich geeks with fancy cars. I didn’t go the full LoJack system, but, the alarm I do have promises to replace the car with a brand new one if it’s stolen irrecoverably within 3 years. I’ll take that.

So… what to do with my shiny new cash-sinkhole… naturally I’ll be going for a drive tomorrow. I’m think Muir woods and up north that way somewhere; I’ve heard it’s really nice. The weather will be really nice tomorrow – because it’s really nice every day here, honestly; it caught me out as to just how non-Melbourne it is during summer – so it should be a good drive.

Also, it has a line-in port right below the cigarette lighter, so I can plug my iPod in. I wouldn’t buy any car without it. :)

‘course, in two weeks it’ll be my iPhone… I didn’t opt for the way more expensive model with the navigation system, but I imagine if I had it’d have shiny Bluetooth integration with my iPhone. Or at least, it should have. But I think I’ll pick up a cheap $200 GPS system like Mike has in his car, since they’re both a) an order of magnitude cheaper, b) hackable and upgradeable and c) portable. Mike takes it with him when we’re walking through San Francisco, as he doesn’t trust my sense of direction. :)

I checked, also, when I was in it test driving around, the space in the back. There’s way more headroom than the Prius – you could easily sit four of me in the car, no worries. It’s called a “compact”, but it’s bigger than my Commodore, I’m sure. Blows ye ol’ Holden out of the water for fuel economy though. :D It purportedly gets 4.7 litres / 100km. Even with my most optimistic calculations, the Commodore was no better than 12. Officially it was only slightly less than 12, which is when it’s brand new, not after 21 years of rust, wear, tear, abuse, and replacement of half the drive train.

So I’m actually feeling reasonably good about the whole thing… I know it’s going to be expensive having a brand new shiny car, but while I did look at second hand cars – and there was a nice Subaru Outback going for $7500 I saw a little while back – I really wanted to get something fuel efficient. And you know, although it seems the reality is I have no money after car loans and insane medical bills, in theory I should be sitting quite pretty, so… I’m just going to pretend I am, and hope reality just falls in behind. ;)

Unfortunately, after trying a few different credit reporting websites, I finally got one which would actually give me an answer other than “sorry, we’ve got your credit report but we can’t show it to you because… just because“, which said to the effect that I don’t have enough credit history to have a meaningful result. So, no credit. This is not a good thing.

I’m going to wander over to the Honda dealership just across the road in a minute, and see what they offer in terms of financing and whatnot, but I’m not expecting much; from looking about on the web, dealer financing isn’t typically competitive. The best rates seem to be with credit unions, but still, without a reasonable credit rating you get beaten about pretty badly. :(

There’s not a whole lot I can really do… I could open up half a dozen credit cards with various banks, and sit on my thumbs for three months… other than that, it’s just a matter of waiting (a long time; you need at least five years of credit history to get beyond an “average” credit rating). Ironically, having a few loans here and there would improve my credit rating. So maybe I should just go buy a house or something and stick it to ’em. ;)

I find it most infuriating the way the credit reporting scheme here works… you’re rewarded for owing lots of money to people, and having many high-value and high-risk lines of credit… which is completely retarded, because someone who’s a safe bet to lend to would be someone who takes and presently has very few financial risks…

Finance is retarded.

I had the light-bulb idea of checking the Commonwealth Bank’s loan rates, since I still have my account with them and could funnel the money over here, but, their best interest rates still weren’t as good as even the worst ones here. Ah well, it was worth a try.

And of course even once I get the car, I have to deal with insurance. Insurance here is brutal. Several of the places I checked quote over $5,000 a year for comprehensive insurance on my hypothetical 2007 Honda Civic Hybrid. The typical quote was well over $3,000. And these provide so little coverage anyway, it’s just laughable – for my $3,600 (on average) a year I’d be covered for all of $15,000 property damage, $25,000 person damage, and while my car would be covered it would have all these retarded excesses.

However, on the upside I spoke to Erick at work, whom has moved here from Holland and is thus going through similar trauma, and he noted that he was paying a relatively affordable amount for his insurance. After taking his comments and fiddling with the web forms, I managed to get a quote for something around $2,300 a year. That’s a bit painful, but, I always knew it’d be pricey for me anyway, because I’m one of those evil hot-headed hoon teenagers, that you see writing off their Porsche Boxters every other weekend.

Because I have garages full of Porsches. That I bought with all my low-interest car loans, because of my awesome credit rating.

#%@!

And the car I’m currently eyeing, the hybrid Honda Civic, is only $3,000 cheaper here in the U.S. than in Australia (going by MSRP and today’s exchange rate). That’s not particularly impressive. :(

What I’m curious about (for comparison) is what the price of the Pontiac G8 will be – i.e. Holden VE Commodore. The potentially-optimistic quotes I’ve heard put it at around $35k U.S., which is a worry, because the low-end Omega model goes for $35k Australian… it’s likely Pontiac will start their base model on a higher VE model – probably the SS V at least – but still…

I was promised cheap cars, and the delivery has been lacking. :/

Anyway, so, I went down there for the written test, which I wrote about previously, and that went fine. I then went back the next week to do the driving test.

So, I drove down there – which was an adventure in itself; I wasn’t used to the highways at that point and missed my turn off several times. But I made it eventually, and more or less on time, too.

But I didn’t bring my rental agreement with me. ’cause of course they have that big “license & insurance” thing here, and I didn’t have any proof of insurance. I actually did, in that I had a Certificate of Self Insurance. That’s one of the four ways of insuring your car here, and just means that the owner of the car (Hertz) are approved to provide their own insurance. Done.

Now, whether that insurance covers just the car or not, I don’t know. So, maybe it’s not sufficient. In any case, I had no idea they were going to ask for that sort of crap, so I hadn’t brought any of the rental papers.

So, they sent me away. Booked me in for a few days later or the next week or whatever. Great.

I came back the second time, with the rental agreement and all my other bits and pieces. They’d said last time, after checking all my other documentation, that the only thing I needed was the rental agreement – with that we’d be fine. They actually said that – it wasn’t implied, I didn’t assume, they straight out said it.

So of course when I turned up with specifically everything they asked for, they said “Oh, no, you can’t possibly do your test in a rental car!”. Eh? This came up the first time, and they’d decided then that it would be fine. But no, apparently DMV policy was completely turned on it’s head in the interval between my two visits. Grrr.

They guy offered to hold my appointment for up to half an hour, supposedly enough time for me to go off to the nearest Hertz rental place, get a letter of permission for doing the test, and get back. Well… pfft. Aside from going the wrong way to start off with – which wasn’t really anyone’s fault; the guy gave me directions, but they were critically ambiguous as it turned out – which cost me the half hour anyway. And when I did actually get to where the guy had said to go, it took me four passes and fifteen minutes just to find the Hertz place. Because it’s not there anymore – it’s closed down.

So, even if I hadn’t gotten lost first up, I still would not have made it in half an hour. *eye bulges*

So I went to the one in Campbell or wherever it is, and gave up on the idea of doing the test that day. Which was a good thing to give up, because when I got there, they guys were more than happy to give me the letter I needed – but first they had to cancel my contract and open a new one. Turns out I didn’t have the necessary insurance to do the driving test in the car, so it not only cost extra but couldn’t be added on to the existing contract.

*sigh*

So I said thanks but no thanks, and went home.

And that’s the reason, kids, why uncle Wade never got his Californian driver’s license.

Well, that’s being necessarily dramatic – I figured it would be a lot easier to just wait until I get my own car, then do the test. That seems to be the only scenario they can actually handle.

It’s a shame too, because it’s actually a pretty good car, all things considered. Sure, it has it’s couple of quirks.. or seven… but that’s just personality. :D

And it actually gets pretty similar metrage (metric mileage?) to the Mazda 6 I just rented. ‘course, the Mazda was twenty years newer, a V6, and had many of the mod cons – not a line in port on the radio, though, which is retarded – and was comparatively a supercar compared to the old Commodore… but still… similar mileage… :D

So far the best suggestion seems to be to eBay it and make it somebody else’s problem. That works for me, so, that’s probably what’ll happen.

And just for some stupid comic effect, they actually do have a postal worker there, but the sign blocking most of the window states that he doesn’t do anything. (I paraphrase, but that’s pretty accurate; you can’t post packages or anything like that, for a start… what the?!)

So, I had to go to the Stevens Creek post office, way down past De Anza, which takes twenty minutes each way from my current place due to traffic.

I then went back home, dropped off all the crap from the car I’d forgotten to remove earlier, and then went up Stevens Creek about a whole block or so to the Hertz place there. I figured I might be able to return it there, probably for some ridiculous fee, but if it saved me the five hour trip to the airport & back, it’d probably be worth it. So, who wants to hazard a guess as to how much extra it costs to return your rental car there, some 50km or so from the airport where I was technically supposed to return it to?

Go on, guess… in any case, you’re wrong, because you couldn’t possibly guess high enough. US$1200 dollars. That’s right, twelve hundred dollars extra, just to return 50km from the pre-allocated destination. Who do they get to drive their cars back, Michael Schumacher?!

Now, to be specific that majority of that fee arose from the policy that you have to pay mileage for such a drop off, that’s not the specified destination. But still, no matter how it’s spun, that’s just retarded.

So, I got to drive to the airport… what fun.

Driving to the airport isn’t that bad – the traffic on 101 is a bit spastic at times, coming randomly to complete stops for absolutely no reason, but then you get that a lot here I’ve noticed, and I’m yet to figure out why; anyway, it’s the return that kills you. Half an hour to wait for the BART (from memory, every single time I’ve caught the BART from the airport, I’ve arrived at the station right as the first train leaves, making me wait another half an hour), twenty minutes waiting for the Caltrain at Millbrae – again, for reasons unknown, I always get stuck there for ages – then a good hour on the train, then another hour to walk to work from Sunnyvale.

Great entertainment, fun for the whole family. *sigh*

I had my iPod, so it wasn’t completely unbearable, and I did appreciate the exercise if nothing else, but I wasn’t thrilled about having missed a full half day of work, just to drop my car back to the rental company which has an office one block from my house.

I went for a ride in a (presumably 2005/2006) Prius while I was living over there last time, and regardless of what the spec sheet says, I found it a really comfortable car (as a passenger), with a nice spacious interior, nice finish, and some cool bells & whistles.

I discovered, after a bit of browsing, that cars don’t depreciate in the same manner in the U.S. (or California, at least) as in Australia. A three or four-year old car, in good condition, often sells for not much shy of it’s original price. This reinforced the idea of just buying new, since by the time the cars are old enough to be significantly cheaper, they’re too old to be worth having.

I really want, in a nutshell, my current car – albeit a modern version, of course. A stationwagon, with roof racks and plenty of space, but not a big car. My car is tiny compared to stationwagons these days, yet still has more space inside than many of them. It’s a really good, practical car – and pretty darn reliable, really, for a car of it’s age.

For example, the other night Jens, Dean, dad & I went out to Black Angus for dinner, in Dean’s turbo-diesel Audi. I looked at Audis prior to this, since they have a good name for quality and handling, but in the U.S. they’re really quite expensive – most European cars aren’t much cheaper in the U.S. than in Australia. So, even the cheapest Audis were really in the next price category up from what I’m currently willing to spend. And the turbo-diesel we drove is just out of the question.

Anyway, while the Audi was very nice, it was – like most Audis – a bit plain to look at. Not that I especially mind, but it is nice to have a car that people want to look at, as opposed to one they don’t mind looking at. It was also surprisingly small inside. I was sitting in the back, where there’s less space of course, but it was really the head room that was the problem – I wasn’t slouching, but there wasn’t much in it. For such a big car – it’s bigger than mine, which makes it big in my book, regardless of whatever official categorisation it has – it has very little internal space. It also felt very heavy – just opening and closing the doors required significant effort, which felt really strange.

So, that’s turned me off Audis a bit. It shouldn’t have surprised me, anyway, really – most European cars are quite small. I just thought they were small on the outside, not also the inside.

So, I’d seen the Topgear guys rave on the MX-5 a week or two ago, so I casually checked that out as well. I figured it’d be more than I wanted to pay, but surprisingly it’s about the same as a Prius – $20k-$25k US. So, suddenly there was another contender for my attention.

I also looked a little at some of the American cars, but by and large they didn’t really take my fancy. Aside from being unnecessarily large, for the most part, there’s a big thing at the moment with that old muscle-car look, which I really really hate, so there’s precious little on offer as a result.

Well, aside from Corvettes, of course. But they’re kinda at odds with my fuel-efficiency aim, with their ~6L V8s, so… :) They’re also pretty pricey – more than I’m looking to pay – so, while they’re reasonably nice, they’re not in the cards. I also looked at Mustangs, as I noted previously, which are certainly affordable – cheaper than everything else I’ve mentioned thus far – but I’ve never been a fan in general, and the vast majority of Mustangs I’ve actually seen and been in are okay looking on the outside, but very tacky on the inside. There was one Mustang I photographed in San Francisco last time I was there which looked much nicer. But it wasn’t a convertible, and hey, if you’re going to get a Mustang, it has to be a red convertible, right? :D

Anyway, I mentioned my car hunting to a few people, and dad came home one night with a few suggestions, having looked himself. He added to the list of considerations the Monaro (a.k.a. Pontiac GTO in the U.S.), a MX-5-ish Pontiac Solstice, and a WRX. I’d actually looked at the WRX, but they’re pretty pricey really, and while I like Subarus quite a bit, I’m not really of the right mentality to own a WRX. And their fuel economy is pretty poor by any standard, although they do at least come in a stationwagon.

Jens & dad both think the Solstice is better than the MX-5; it does look vaguely similar, insofar as they’re both convertibles. But, I find it overly cutesy and girly. Plus it doesn’t really have anything over the MX-5 – it’s heavier, less fuel efficient, and more expensive (albeit only slightly). But then Jens doesn’t like the MX-5, thinking it’s a “hairdresser’s car”, whereas I quite like the look, and they’re certainly a popular and well-reviewed car, as evident by the four I’ve seen in the last two days and their numerous Car of the Year awards.

Having said that, we all agreed that an RX-8 would be really good, but then they’re half the price again of the MX-5, and counting.

And the last thing was the Monaro. Horrible fuel efficiency, massively over-powered, and really, more expensive than I’m considering at over $30k U.S. I mean, they’re nice enough cars and all, but they’re also obsolete – there isn’t even a 2007 model, and the “2006” model is really just the 2005 anyway. Pontiac’s bringing out the new VE Commodore as the Pontiac G8 sometime later in this year (or early next). So I’d be buying an obsolete and about-to-be-buried model, and paying a hefty premium for it. No thanks. I’ll consider the VE if and when it comes out there, but I suspect it’ll be just as pricey and similarly impractical (whether they import anything other than the Coupe remains to be seen, too)

So, I’m still undecided. And in any case, all the cars mentioned thus far aren’t really what I want in terms of practicality – i.e. a stationwagon (well, aside from the WRX, but it loses on just about every other measure). I think it’ll just be a case, ultimately, of whatever good deal I come across first. I’ll have a hire car for a few weeks when I first arrive, anyway, so I’ve got some time to consider my options and test drive a few alternatives.

It’ll be interesting to see how these brand new cars compare with my 21-year-old Commodore. My current car actually drives pretty darn well, really, even by modern standards, so while I initially thought anything new would blow my socks off, I’m not so convinced anymore.

Although on the upside I’m pretty sure the transmissions in new cars last more than 12 months, which will be a welcome change. :D And they have suspension, which will be a novelty. :)

It’s been interesting to look at cars, since I’ve never really paid much attention to them in past, but ultimately, as anyone with a car knows, they’re all just giant money sinks in the end. I have a feeling I’ll err on the side of cheap, in the end.

Luckily though I’m aware of it now, and John twisted it out of the way for the moment. The car’s going in for a service this Wednesday, and I told them to replace that hose at least. There’s a few other hoses that are leaking a bit too – particularly around the steering fluid reservoir – although luckily the levels are still within tolerances.

The service is going to be at least $120. Grrr… expensive little buggers. :/

This was of course not breaking the speed limit the entire way. And I was pretty lucky with the lights, too; only had to stop a couple of times the whole trip.

No significant damage, of course – a tiny dint in the bumper and a rather deformed number plate, but nothing a few minutes with some pliers and a hammer won’t fix. Still, it was annoying. It just rubs in the fact that despite things like this, I’m the one paying through the nose for insurance, because obviously I’m one of the worst drivers out there. Clearly.

To be fair, the guy was trying to back out of the way of an old lady, who wanted to cross the street, so his heart was in the right place. It would have been helpful, perhaps, if his eyes had been also; I don’t think he actually looked behind him at all.

He did pull over just across the road, so we could look at the damage – none to his car, of course; he hit me with his tow bar. He didn’t seemed much perplexed at all. I was more concerned with getting to class, as I was already late, and didn’t figure a small dint was worth much trouble; it’d just be part of the scenery on my car. :)

But it was all the more annoying because there wasn’t a whole lot I did, or could have done. There was another car behind me, so I wasn’t going back much further anyway. I probably could have honked my horn, but didn’t… I was sort of enthralled, just thinking “this guys going to hit me.. no way… no really, he is… what a jackass”.

I probably should have thought quicker, but I don’t think much when I’m driving, as a rule… thinking leads to questions like “so, why exactly are we doing 40 in an 80 zone?”, and whatnot, which makes me cranky.

So, my first accident. Or, more accurately, this random guy’s accident, at my expense. Hooray!

Anyway, given that we actually had relatively nice weather today, I got out and fiddled with my car for a bit. I fixed the clock & interior light; they’re both on the same fuse, which had blown. I guess frequently connecting & disconnecting the battery is going to do that… good thing I picked up a handful of fuses a few weeks back.

Then, I went on to the stereo & amp, the presumed cause of my battery woes. I also verified that my multimeter is indeed incapable of measuring current now; presumably the fuse is blown. Ah well. Time for another one, perhaps… but they cost all of $5… ;)

Still, they’re the ones the RACV uses… hmm… which probably says more about the multimeters than the RACV. Maybe I’ll get a proper one this time around.

Anyway, so, my suspicion was correct – the stereo is wired up wrong. Well, I’m pretty sure it is, at least; it’s wired up for the so-called “LOGIC” mode, which essentially means the stereo itself is responsible for turning itself off, rather than just being controlled by the ignition. It’s been done this way on purpose, judging by the style and the scribbles in the manual, and figures… whoever had this installed years ago wanted to sit in McDonalds car parks late at night and annoy the neighbourhood. And I’m supposedly the P-plater. Pfft.

Beyond that though, they appear to have hardwired the amp as always on. It’s certainly on now, with the car & stereo off. Oddly enough they’ve connected something to the active crossover port (while leaving the power control – normally connected to the ignition – floating)… I don’t really know that much about speaker systems, but experimentally the result seems to be that it’s always on. Brilliant.

Why they’ve connected to the crossover port when it’s the only amp in the car, I don’t know… the stereo has a built-in amp, sure, but it’s not connected to anything.

Anyway, I guess I’ll have to go hassle an auto-electrician.

The trick now is just to prove that it’s the amp that’s sucking up all the juice. If it is, I think I can manage a master power switch on it…. I do have that shiny red one somewhere – you know the type, the impressive military ones with the plastic cover that you flip up to access the toggle. I bought it ’cause it’s cool… now I might actually have a use for it. :D

The real problem is that, no matter what conclusion I come to with the setup, I can’t actually do much about it. I had to take all sorts of bits and pieces apart – half the dashboard, just about – just to see what the connections were, let alone make them accessible enough to modify. I can’t figure out how they installed it originally… my only guess is that they actually pulled the whole centre panel out.

Who knows. Anyway. The whole exercise wasn’t a total loss, in any case – I realise that the amp has four lovely RCA line-level inputs (which can be cross-linked for a stereo input), the other end of which is nicely exposed just below the dashboard on the passenger side. Superb. So I just need to make up a convenient little cable, and I can plug my iPod straight in. No more putting up with the radio. Ahhhh… *dreams wistfully*

Maybe I’ll get fancy and put in a switch on the dashboard to toggle between them… nah.

‘course, I’ll have to be careful about volume… maybe I’ll have to be a bit more elaborate with the connection. I’m pretty sure the amp is stronger than the speakers… I’d not like to find out at what level they blow out. :/

But, at least now I can have some decent music for my driving tomorrow.

Anyway, while we were talking about our cars and their little quirks, she mentioned she had to keep a hammer in the driver’s door pocket in her previous car; she’d have to give the starter motor three quick taps before it would work. Doesn’t sound too different to my situation. I’m surprised no-one’s suggested soft chanting and tracing mystic runes as well. ;)

Of course, I still need jump leads… long ones, too, as yesterday emphasised – the little island inbetween facing parks was just enough to prevent Rob’s leads from reaching. D’oh.

Plus, Rob’ll probably want his back one day. ;)

It was also sadly ironic that Rob left just before we realised we’d have to move her car, which we needed a third person for. Nonetheless, we conscripted some sprightly young lad as he passed, so it all worked out. :)

Eh? Did I miss something? Didn’t we invade some country recently to get more petrol?

I guess it’s time to trade-in for a ’73 Falcon, and move out to Fairhaven.

So now I’m back to square one. I blame the amp. But it seems if I disconnect the battery while the car’s off, then measure the current, it’s not being used… but I know it is, before I disconnect it. So something in the car is presumably meant to be shutting down when the car turns off, but isn’t (until I yank all power, that’ll do it). Sodding heck. Since I don’t have any of those groovy instruments for measuring current by induction, I’m at a loss. I figure it can only be the amp or the stereo, most likely the former; I can’t imagine the stereo would draw that much power anyway.

So I guess I’ll have to have at it sometime, and pull it all out and see what gives. But, another time, I think. For now, I have a workaround – a nifty little marine battery valve which lets me turn the battery off as I please. Courtesy of my mum, for my birthday. Along with a battery charger, which is in use right now charging that old battery back up again.

‘course, it’s a bit of a pain to have to pop the bonnet and close the valve every time I start the car, but it’s better than the alternative. And it may well deter casual thieves… which would surely be the only sort taking any interest at all in my car. :)

A word of warning though – battery terminals are really, really soft… so soft that after first attaching the battery valve, it cut itself a real nice groove into the terminal. Ultimately I had to file off the top sides of the terminal to remove it again. Stupid terminals.

I coincidentally discovered that a healthy sized spanner works wonders as a crowbar. :D