Month: March 2015

5 Spring Car Care Tips

Spring is officially here, and even through some spots around the Twin Cities have been hit with some late season snow, the warm weather is right around the corner. We’ve talked about the importance of prepping your car for winter on the blog before, but keeping your car in tune for spring is just as critical in extending the life of your vehicle. Below, we share five ways to prepare your car for spring.

1. Check Your Tire Pressure – Temperature directly affects your tire pressure, so you’ll want to ensure they are properly inflated. The warmer weather will increase your tire pressure, and if the pressure gets too high, you may be prone to a blow out. Use a pressure guage to ensure your tires are at the proper psi.

2. Examine Your Wiper Blades – Spring is typically a very wet month, which means you’ll need to be able to see clearly when it’s rainy. Windshield wipers are relativity cheap to buy, and you can install them yourself. Check your owner’s manual to make sure you purchase the right type of blade.

Spring Car Care

3. Alignment Issues – Hopefully your car’s alignment is fine right now, but as we’ve documented on the blog before, spring is usually synonymous with pothole season. Do your best to safely avoid any potholes you see in the road, and don’t hesitate to report particularly nasty potholes to the proper department. Potholes can severely damage your suspension and alignment, so if you notice that your car is pulling to the right after hitting a pothole, stop in to our shop to get it looked at.

4. Pump Your Brakes – Being able to stop during the icy season is very important, but all that extra braking during the winter season takes a toll on your brakes. If you hear a grinding noise while you’re braking, you’ll want to bring your car into the shop immediately. For more information on brake care, swing on over to this blog.

5. Wash Your Car – As we’ve documented before, road salt can be especially damaging to your car’s undercarriage. Take your car to a wash center that provides an undercarriage wash because it can be difficult to fully clean the underside of your car on your own.

The Surprising Downside of Driverless Cars

Remember last week when we shared a story about driverless cars and how they’ll be more popular in 10-20 years? Well a new study says we might want to pump the brakes on driverless cars, as they’ll consume more energy than current transportation methods.

Many auto experts believe that autonomous cars could help decrease fuel consumption, but according to a study out of the University of Michigan, that might not be the case. In essence, researchers believe that driverless cars could save people time, but waste more energy due to extra trips.

Driverless cars

Researchers explained that with traditional transportation, parents commute to work, run errands and shuttle the kids around in the fewest trips possible. If we added driverless cars to the equation, the team of scientists believe the self-driving car would drop one parent off at work, return home, drop off the other parent, return home, then drop the kids off at school, and it would follow a similar pattern in the afternoon. Even if families share or rent a driverless car, individual trips would lead to more total driving.

“It could be that sharing the vehicle ends up increasing the mileage because of all these connecting trips,” said Brandon Schoettle of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. “The net effect is probably going to be an increase in mileage, and in general the more miles you drive the more fuel you burn.”

Related Findings

Additional findings from the UM Transportation Research Institute include:

  • Increased driverless car sharing could mean Americans would own 43 percent fewer cars (1.2 per household, down from 2.1 per household).
  • Annual miles per vehicle could increase by roughly 75 percent (20,406 annual miles, down from 11,661 annual miles).
  • That said, even though we might be putting more miles on our cars, these miles would be more fuel efficient, assuming autonomous concepts could eliminate wasteful driving practices, like flooring the gas or slamming on the brakes.

“The upside is that vehicles could drive much more efficiently,” said Ethan Elkind, an associate director at the Climate Change and Business Program at the University of California at Berkeley. “The downside of course is you may see more people driving. More driving overall is not a great thing for the environment.”

Self-Driving Cars Could Prevent Up To 90% Of Accidents

A new study by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company suggests that widespread acceptance of self-driving cars could reduce traffic accidents by up to 90 percent.

The study suggests that mass adoption of self-driving vehicles will occur in about 15 years, and this could be bad news for collision centers. According to the study, mass adoption of auto-piloted vehicles would:

  • Reduce traffic crashes by up to 90 percent.
  • Prevent up to $190 billion annually in damages and health-related costs.
  • Save thousands of lives.

Hans-Werner Kaas, a senior partner at McKiney’s automotive division, said automotive producers have already shifted their focus to autonomous or semiautonomous vehicles.

“Autonomous vehicles and the path toward them is one of the most shaping trends in the auto industry today,” said Kaas.

autonomous car

Interestingly, since the vehicles would rely on such sophisticated technology, McKiney and Company believes the whole dynamic of the automotive industry would change. Instead of owning your own self-driving car, the firm believes we’ll shift to a pay-per-ride model.

Sophisticated Technologies

According to data published on WardsAuto.com, cars are already being equipped with more sophisticated safety measures. In the 2014 model year, 1.4 percent of new vehicles had adaptive cruise control, an increase from 1.1 percent in 2013. Lane-departure prevention technology and blind-spot alert controls also increased in the 2014 models, rising 5.0 percent and 3.8 percent respectively.

Despite the increasing technology, there’s still plenty of hurdles to clear before we see mass production of self-drivign vehicles. Ryan Eustice, a robotics professor at the University of Michigan, said companies need to account for a myriad of potential pitfalls, like a constantly updating maps system and the ability to drive on less-than-ideal weather conditions.

“The idea has been a little bit oversold in terms of having the problems solved.”

Related source: Wall Street Journal

AM/FM Radio Preferred Listening Option For Most Drivers

Although in-car connectivity appears to be on the rise, a new study revealed that most drivers prefer to listen to the old fashioned AM/FM radio while on the road.

The study was conducted by the market research firm Ipsos in an effort to determine what audio options drivers prefer. Over 1,000 drivers over the age of 18 were asked to select all the audio options they listen to in the car. After looking at the responses, researchers uncovered:

  • 99 percent of people are comfortable with their current car’s audio set up.
  • More than 90 percent of respondents said they prefer physical buttons and controls built into the dashboard compared to an app on the car’s interface.
  • 84 percent of drivers said they listen to the radio in the car.
  • 64 percent of drivers said they listen to CD players.
  • 22 percent preferred Sirius/XM radio, 18 percent listened to Pandora radio, eight percent listened to iHeartRadio, seven percent listened to iHeartRadio and seven percent listened to Spotify.

Car Repair

Thomas Spinelli, vice president of Ipsos MediaCT, said it’s clear that “in spite of consumers’ love of apps and new digital products, they have a great attachment to their AM/FM radio and an overwhelming desire to keep its operation and function as it is. The in-car AM/FM radio is still a universally known audio platform ­ and its ease of use, convenience, features and familiarity continue to make it a top consumer choice for in-car audio.”

This study might not be music to Hyundai’s ears, as they recently announced that they plan to phase out CD players in favor of infotainment systems that rely on smartphones and bluetooth connectivity.

Related source: Radio World