re: "Google Wallet may be making a return" (and "Why is it so complex

Funny, I get annoyed with post 2000 cars. I'm quite irritated with my

2005 Hyundai Elantra. I don't like the hydraulic clutch, power windows, larger A-pillars, etc, etc. I enjoy driving the '89 Olds wagon. Can't wait to fix my '75 Dodge Dart. It needs a leaf spring replaced (Lord knows how that broke), then it's back on the road.

I live in Ohio, in a county with no emissions. No car inspections either; I love it!

I've owned several. I currently have 5 Geo Metros. Some models had the

12" rim tires; others had 13". It's getting hard to find new 12" rim tires. My former '95 Toyota Tercel had 13's also. All of my larger vehicles take 15's now.

They're all Windows, but yes, you're correct there are more Windows ngs alt.comp.os.windows-11 alt.comp.os.windows-10 alt.comp.os.windows-8 microsoft.public.windowsxp.general alt.comp.os.windows-2000 alt.comp.os.windows-95 alt.comp.os.ms-dos>

etc.

The main archived Windows newsgroup isn't used by many people. <groups.google.com/g/alt.comp.microsoft.windows>

There's also the bay concept (you dig a hole, put in steps, and voila!).

Yup. If the tires are small (less than about 17 inches perhaps) you can use the bead breaker that comes with the manual tire changer. I'm assuming, of course, that you have compressed air and all the necessary air fittings.

There are six beads involved, the first & last being the hardest.

First you remove the shrader valve (with the special driver). a. Then you break the outside bead (using the bead breaker). b. You break the inside bead next (again, using the bead breaker). c. Then you remove the upper bead (using the tire changer). d. Then you remove the lower bead (using the tire changer).

If desired, at this point you can replace the tire valve if you like. Xeno and I like the mostly brass ones as opposed to the mostly rubber ones. The mostly brass use a nut while the mostly rubber ones use a grommet.

At this point you _position_ the new tire (by the dots)... e. Then you set the lower bead of the new tire (using the tire changer). f. Then you set the upper bead of the new tire (using the tire changer).

Then you push the lower bead in at the rim's drop center (knees & hands). And then you flush it full of air until the beads seat & pop a few times.

After that, you adjust the tire pressure (I stick with about 30 to 35 psi). And then you do a static balance (using the static wheel balancer tool).

For small tires it's a breeze. It only gets difficult when the tires reach around 16 and 17 inches.

I'm not sure exactly why that's the case, as the lower profile tires don't cause as much a problem in my humble experience - but I think the light truck tires have a stiffer sidewall (load range is higher).

If you don't get the lower bead in the drop center - you are dead.

Ah. Pads. Pads. Pads. What can I tell you.

The price is meaningless. What matters are the specs.

The most important spec for a pad is cold/hot braking friction. That is something _every_ pad has printed on the pad (for good reason).

After that, it's a crap shoot. a. Dusting b. Noise c. Wear d. Fitment

The way I buy pads is almost fool proof.

1. I know what the OEM pads are (e.g., Jurid/Textar, both FF).
2. I know what other people use on the BMW forums (e.g., Akebono).
3. I try those first and if they work, I stick to those pads.

Never would I get lower than the OEM friction ratings though. So if the PBR is GG then it's OK but not if it's EE.

Fun fact: Plenty of pads are EE which is just about the same coefficient of friction as steel on steel... which says a lot about how reliable brakes are when you think about the braking being barely better than no pad material left for _some_ pads sold on the market today.

Wow. You're learning a lot. Good for you. You can amortize that learning over the next five or six decades. Good for you. To you a car is a commodity (and it is). To most people it's not (but it still is).

Every marketing team tries to differentiate their car from the other car. It's a game marketing plays (and most people fall for it).

Yup. I had a chevy pickup with no first gear that we used to take "baja" in the hills of New York State. Fun stuff when you don't care about what bangs about in the truck (trees, logs, rocks, etc.). Lots of fun I had way back when doing what you are doing now. Good for you!

I have oxyacetylene and electric arc where they're completely different but I never get a good-looking weld as _that_ is what takes the expert to do.

Rotors are rotors are rotors. They're commodities. Look at Rockauto and Carid and you can easily get rotors for $15 to $25 each.

Here's a random hit given a search for $15 rotors on Rockauto & on Carid:

I recently replaced a five speed transmission clutch and decided to replace the flywheel where it was $60 to turn it and about the same to buy a new one online but I ended up paying about $80 (as I recall) since I needed it pronto so I picked up the one at the local auto parts store.

The Stealer was something like $300 or so (as I recall). They don't call them the Stealer for no good reason.

Yup. You know it well. Most people are stupid. You're not. That's why replacing the rotors works but so does "scraping" the deposits off where there are various free methods to scrape the uneven deposition off.

Fun Fact: What is the _main_ cause of the uneven deposition?

HINT: It's your foot doing what your brain instinctively tells it to do; but if you train your foot to do the right thing instead, you won't ever get "rotor warp" again (at least not the pad deposition type anyway).

Running a tire down to the point that you can see the belts is utterly irresponsible.

Fun fact: If wheels don't shake at any speed, they're properly balanced.

To those who want to _learn_ something from the pros, check this video out: *How to Balance Your Car's Tires at Home with the HF Static Balancer*

While I have a love/hate relationship with Scotty Kilmer's advice, in _that_ instance he paid $70 for balancing which sucked so he bought the Harbor Freight $70 balancer and he said he balanced it better'n they did.

Fun fact: Scotty Kilmer has used _my_ annotated graphics in his videos!

I bought well over a hundred gallons of gasoline two days before the war, and I'm almost empty now, so I'll find out what the gas prices are in California, but I'm expecting even Costco to be well nigh near six bucks.

I bring that up only because that's the one thing I love about newer cars, is that they tend to get better gas mileage than do the older cars.

However, just the 10% (or so) sales tax on a newer car is far more than what it would cost to maintain the older car, so that's one reason to keep the car for as long as you can (IMHO).

Banal fact.

Fun observation: you have no proof of that.

I can tell instantly that you've never even once taken a vacuum tube apart.

In addition, you've never smashed the tube in the old style TVs either.

Worse, you add no value to _any_ Usenet conversation, nospam. You can't.

The only thing Alan Baker posts for on Usenet is to argue about nothing.

But I _do_ want to know two things, if you know more about them, since you have far more experience in handling than I do (and I respect that).

I was taught, long ago, that the lower profile was for quicker handling, and we all know why that would be the case (all other things being equal).

Is there any other main performance benefit of the lower profile tires?

Thanks for answering this question, where, um, er, that's what I said. Didn't I? (Anyway, I agree that the steering is the main beneficiary.)

I would call it "quicker steering" in that the time between twisting the steering wheel & the time that force makes it to the pavement, is reduced.

Yup. That's why I was saying it's ridiculous to put low profile tires on a light truck or SUV because the rest of the design is completely different.

Particularly the suspension.

Agreed. Many never make it onto an upaved shoulder of a road!

Yup. Posers will pose. It's cheaper to look fast than it is to be fast.

To me, the look of a low profile tired SUV or Light Truck is ridiculous only because it doesn't make any engineering sense to do something like that.

It's like putting dual exhausts and racing stripes on a Ford Pinto.

The overly simplistic answer that shows no real understanding...

In my experience with 14 inch tires, they practically fall on and off the wheels, so for those tires, you have no good reason to be paying $20 for a mounting and balancing when it should be done for the price of a tire valve.

It's the higher load range (104 or so) SUV/LT tires that, in my experience, are harder to break the bead of and to mount (balancing is the same).

Take a look at the Scotty Kilmer video I posted, and note particularly that the photos I've been posting (which I've posted for years) are the _same_ as in Scotty Kilmer's videos (just look and you'll recognize my pictures!).

<snip>

There are no emissions in Ohio? Amazing.

Just got the first smog check on my wife's 2014 vehicle, there are no smog checks required for the first eight years. Since the smog checks now just involve reading the status of the sensors and checking that the gas cap gasket is okay, the whole thing takes about 1-2 minutes. Or it used to anyway. When I was getting a smog check on Sunday I asked the guy why it was taking so long and he said that the BAR (Bureau of Automotive Repair) now requires checks to last ten minutes so he had to leave the cable plugged into the OBD-II port for ten minutes, until the computer beeped ans said ten minutes were up. $45.

The smog check places have to have a dynomometer to be certified by the state but they are rarely used anymore since OBD-II has been around since 1996. Model year 1975 and older don't require a smog check.

he said 'in a county with no emissions', not the entire state.

many states do not have emissions checks in rural areas.

You mean 14" rims...

The kindergarten iKooks would have a field day with that sentence, even though every _adult_ knows exactly what Steve & Michael Trew meant.

I didn't know about the ten minute requirement. Thanks. Most of my cars have to be put on the dyno which takes far longer for the same price (most of the time).

The problem is that a _lot_ of the places I went to last said the dyno "wasn't working" so that may be a trick that they pull to minimize its use.

I find it interesting that they essentially charge the same amount for an OBD check as for when they run it on the dyno and sniff the tailpipe.

California has a way of creating entirely new industries that essentially do nothing whatsoever useful, in that some states, at least in the past, did a _real_ safety check along with the smog check, for free!

They even put every car over 90K miles on a lift to check the steering. And they even _drove_ every car to check the brakes on a huge manometer.

All for free. Dunno if they still do that though, as those were in my college days.

The quicker steering is a direct *result* of the tighter slip angles. What it also does is reduce steering feel so, once tyres are close to the limit, shit happens real quick.

Leaf springs commonly break. It is one of the things I remember doing a lot of when most cars had semi-eliptical leaf springs back in the day. Used to replace a lot of broken coils springs too.

No, he means 14" tyres which happen to fit 14" rims. Good, huh?