Car Pools – OKIEROVER.COM

So a year and a half ago I bought a poly-bush kit for the Classic. I thought, “I’ll just go up to JagGuy’s shop and throw these on and be done with it.” I found out this is an eight hour job and mostly not much fun. So I’m looking for a shop that will do it for me. I went to one today (I’m not going to mention the name) and they had a policy that prohibited customers bringing their own parts in for replacement.

I got the red ones.

I’ve to respect that in some small way, due to watching too many people “bring their own knowledge” and parts to the computer industry I work in. If you told them up front, if you work on it before I do, it will cost you double, most people would laugh. But it often does. First you have to un-do their mistakes and then work on it yourself.

So now I’m still looking. I’m thinking though that I can’t afford the 8 hours of labor a shop is going to charge me and I’m probably going to do the job myself. Gone are the days when I could just whip out the credit card and worry about paying later. Heavy sigh…I hate being broke.

The Classic sounds like CRAP. The exhaust is screwed. I need new catalytic converters for sure. I know this due to hearing the ceramics bouncing around in them for a year. But even though I don’t drive it…it’s bothering me how it sounds. I’ve got two routes: new catalytic converters or a new Y pipe. Either way I’m out several hundred dollars. If I had a welder and the knowledge I’d do this myself. Heavy sigh…I don’t know how to weld.

I have a feeling that I will be driving it again before the end of next year on a daily basis. So I need to keep it up and take good care of it, even though it goes mostly unappreciated and depreciated by a daughter who uses the ample leg room in the back much like she uses the floor in her room to “store” things. Considering the last time I cleaned out the back for her, I’ve been in cleaner dumpsters. I fuss about it…and she continues to trash it out. Heavy sigh…teenagers.

The leather in the Classic is also visually telling us it’s had better days. I found Lexol at a local feed store. Surprised I made an impulse purchase only to find I already had a bottle at home I haven’t been using. Good news, it was slightly cheaper than the online places and I helped out a local guy with a sale. Heavy sigh…too much crap in the garage.

Our current house doesn't look like this, not at all

My garage at our previous house.

So I need to get out there and save what is left of the leather in the Classic. The driver’s seat is a goner. Nothing to do there. But the rest of the leather can be saved if I religiously put that stuff on and possibly some “leather feed” my Jaguar buddy is always telling me about. So I’ve got to find a seat to replace the trashed one. Just getting the leather and putting it on is, I’m told, a huge undertaking. So I can buy a seat from Rover Cannibal, I heard Ryan mumble one day, “they have plenty of seats”. Heavy sigh…another project I don’t have time to do.

Still the coolest logo in the business.

Today we added a fourth to our carpool. The drive to work just got a lot cheaper.

Thanks for reading, and happy rovering.

The next person I hear say the reason for the high gas prices is high demand, gets a good ol’fashioned hole stomped in the middle of them, which I will then proceed to walk dry.

It’s not demand…it’s the F@#%ing speculators. Seriously, 90% of drivers are doing the same thing they do everyday, drive to work. Where’s the increased demand? It’s all bull shit.

As many of you Land Rover fans have discovered, 4$(US) per gallon gasoline and the SUV lifestyle do not have positive affects on your wallet. It’s been so bad that I have actually started to car pool again. Something I never thought I’d have to do again.

I car pooled back in the early 2000s when gasoline was a halcyon 1.65$(US) a gallon and we thought we were getting raped with those prices. When I changed jobs (and buildings) I stopped. But now I am back in that building and have two other guys in my car pool. With this car pooling I have had to give up my beloved books on tape and my quiet time each day. But it has saved us a lot of money so far.

So when the Atlantic British catalog came in the mail and the gas mileage on the Disco dropping below 14mpg and the price of petrol inching toward outrageous amounts the perfect storm of common sense and dammit I’ll do it have come together.

We are taking a vacation out to Huntington Beach to visit some friends this summer. And we have decided to drive. Mostly because the price of flying and renting a car is completely outrageous. And besides, who wants to be trapped in a plane, in coach, with a hundred other unhappy flyers for four hours plus airport lay-overs?

Answer: That would not be anyone one named OkieRover, nor any of his spawn.

We have two choices of transportation to Kalifornia.

A 2003 Land Rover Discovery SE or a 2002 Ford Taurus

Lets compare… Pros and Cons

Disco – roomy, not as roomy as a 1993 Range Rover LWB but I don’t have the money or time to convince my wife we should take the Rangie to Kali.
Taurus – not roomy, not at all
Disco – comfortable leather seats
Taurus – probably the most uncomfortable seats in any car known to man with the possible exception of the Mustang I ride in one out of three weeks to work
Disco – individual climate controlled environment and rear air
Taurus – two temperatures in the front, hot or cold, one temp in the back, hot
Disco – 14-15mpg on a good day on the highway
Taurus – 32-36mpg on the highway at 90+. We know that because we drove it to Denver one Thanksgiving and my son ratted my wife out for going 100mph while I was napping. We got really good mileage on that trip.

So as you can see it’s an easy choice and we have a clear winner. We are taking the Disco. Besides just think of all the great things we would miss if we flew on our way out to see Marty Moose:

Most of the New Mexican desert
Most of the Arizonan desert
The Grand Canyon
Las Vegas
29 Palms Military Reservation
Los Angeles traffic
San Diego
Padres baseball
Yuma, Arizona
Tombstone
Roswell, NM

And missing the chance to hear my son coin a new phrase describing Kalifornians and their driving abilities. Floridiots was his last entry from our 2005 vacation to Ft. Myers.

Yeah okay, I’ll give ya the fact it’s gonna be a long boring drive. But who wants to miss the Mother Road?

Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say…but we’re still gonna drive.

So nearly 500$(US) later and we have new sparky plugs, plug wires, and oxygen sensors on the way to get the Disco tuned up for the long drive. Now if I can just avoid ethanol on the way out there we should be able to get there in comfort. Making food into fuel is stupid. It’s made the cost of food go up and everyone that voted for it in congress needs a red hot poker up the tail pipe. Yeah I’m kinda passionate about that. Maybe I’ll blog about that in the future.
Hopefully we can get 16-18mpg while we enjoy each other’s close quarters company in a Land Rover heading west like so many of our relatives did 75 years ago.

But this time we are bringing cash and riding in style.

Go ahead call us Okies, we’ll just smile and yep, we sure are.

Thanks for reading and happy rovering.

Category: Car Pools

Heavy Sigh (Post #91) 5/29/2008

Tune up time…Dammit (Post #90) 5/28/2008