Driving Day
Today I took some time off work to drive a bit more. After our weekend car adventures, I needed to drive back out to Morris, drop off the rental, wait for a ride back to Diamond, and pick up my car.
Today I took some time off work to drive a bit more. After our weekend car adventures, I needed to drive back out to Morris, drop off the rental, wait for a ride back to Diamond, and pick up my car.
This, to me, was an indicator that the battery was being charged, but only got charged when the car was moving at a certain speed. Since most of our trip would be on the highway, at a decent speed, I figured we’d be fine. The battery would charge as we were travelling, and would stop charging when we slowed to under 10 mph.
That was an incorrect assumption. As you’ll soon see.
It’s a 2008 Chevy Aveo with 118,737 miles. It’s had regular oil changes and was well maintained. Has fairly new tires, new clutch and transmission. Asking $2,000.
In addition to the insurance angle, there’s also a device (called the Metronome) that you can plug into your car’s diagnostic port, and that hooks in to an iPhone app. With the Metronome, you can get information on your engine’s health, and find out things like gas mileage, etc. There are also city-specific features (if you live in Chicago, you can get alerts regarding street sweeping, reminding you to move your car), as well as new features in the works.
“You see, until now, insurance companies couldn’t measure how much people actually drive. They couldn’t tell who drove tens or hundreds of thousands a mile a year and who drove just a few. So instead they the 70% of car owners who drive less than the mean subsidize those who drive much more.”
This time around, we were parked in the first spot on Logan, right at the SW corner of Logan and Sacramento. There’s a stoplight on the corner, along with a big street light – we couldn’t ask for a better location, in terms of lighting and visibility. But for whatever reason, someone decided to give our window a bit of a tap.
I called 311 to make a report, but held off on actually going in to the car (I’ve watched too many cop shows, and didn’t want to “disturb the evidence.”) After about 15+ minutes on hold, the cop I spoke with told me to check to see if anything was stolen, and to call back. We chatted briefly, and I basically learned that no one was going to come out and dust for prints.
Last Friday, I made my final payment on the car I bought in 2007. Odd to think that I actually own my car now. It always felt like mine, but I guess now it’s the sense that it’s officially mine. Coupled with the fact that I also paid off my credit card last week… things are looking pretty nice. At…