My apologies! I forgot that this is a global forum and I didn't really explain that as thoroughly as I should have. If you don't live anywhere near where it's below freezing for months at a time, you've likely never seen a plug hanging off the front of a car.
It's like any regular engine block heater, it plugs into the wall. In case you've never heard of a block heater, it's a heating element that is inserted into one of the freeze plugs in the engine's cooling jacket to warm the coolant in the engine when plugged into the wall, no battery power required. These typically operate at about 400W. VW's TDI engines from 1999.5 onward have no freeze plugs (I don't know why), so we have to do things a bit differently. I've got mine on a timer that starts at 4am and runs till 8am. That's all it needs really.
Thanks for providing that link. That engine is fascinating. It's like a 4 cylinder in 2 cylinders. They are also developing a turbo that incorporates an electric motor to provide supercharging at lower rpms before the exhaust velocity is high enough to drive the compressor. Very interesting company to say the least!
That's why pretty much any TDI owner in the colder climes with 2 brain cells in his/her head installs a Temro Zerostart coolant heater (a.k.a. Frostheater if you buy the kit from them). You can get 750W, 1000W and 1500W and they go right in-line with the oil cooler in the coolant hose circuit. Most people use the 1000W model, including myself. I've been using mine for about a week now and the car starts like you just shut it off, at operating temperature (90 Celcius, 190 Fahrenheit) no less! Don't worry about leaving it plugged in too long because it's got a built in thermostat.
VW does have an OEM kit, but it's like $189 and it's only 450W, but apparently they work quite well. The heater is made by Calix. However, the Zerostart kit, with all the hoses and everything you need to install it, will cost you around $100 and it does a much better job.
Lots of cheap stealerships install a crappy stick on oil pan heating element. Those are usually 125W but you can get 250W models. They are more expensive than the Zerostart setup and burn out relatively quickly. They are also a potential fire hazard.
I've got a 2002 Jetta TDI myself, but I like to be able to hear my engines. In fact I've advanced the injection timing at idle 5 from stock (which on mine was 0.6 BTDC at idle). This gives me much better fuel economy and a bit more power too. All you need is a Ross-Tech VAG-COM or equivalent $20 Ebay knockoff and it takes about 2 minutes to do, all on the computer. The motor will immediately sound different, better in my opinion, but it is louder and actually sounds like a diesel afterwards. It's also completely reversible if you don't like it, but I suspect the few extra MPG you'll get will more than make up for it.
The quick and dirty howto is: With the car running, plug in the VAG-COM to the computer and the OBD2 port, open up the VAG-COM software, click Engine, login with 12233, click Adaptation, pick Channel 3, 4 or 5 (can't remember off the top of my head) and you will see the injection timing BTDC and a couple other measurements. Add 100 to the default of 32768 for each degree of advance you want. The maximum is 5 degrees in software, any more and you have to rotate the injection pump under the hood (not for beginners!). It's fine grained so you could go 1.25 degrees if you want by adding 125. I just added 500 (33268) and tested and saved. That's it. Your fuel economy instantly improves. If you don't like it, set it back to 32768 and save it, and your motor will go back to sounding like it did before.
NB: You can only do this on the injection pump style motor, the venerable ALH, which was installed from 1999.5 to 2003. The PD style motors (BRM, BEW, BHW) were installed from 2004-2006.5 and you can't do this adaptation. On the newer common rail motors (CBEA) it's also not possible (2009+). I'm talking North American engines and model years here, I'm not well versed on the European models.
Either way, check out the TDIClub if you're not already a member on the forums. Tons of little tricks and tips to make your TDI'ing much more pleasant. That's where I learned everything I know about them.
As for the newer motors being quieter, yes they are. My mom drives a 2009 TDI and you can barely hear the engine at all from inside the car. Standing outside next to it, it's barely noticeable that it's even a diesel. Tons of power and can VERY easily get you into trouble with radar-wielding cops.
I still use XBMC on my original Xbox for watching movies and TV shows. I have a FreeNAS server serving up the CIFS shares which hold the movies and TV shows and it Just Works. I don't bother with a box to record broadcast TV, I just download the torrents.
The only thing it doesn't do is play HD (720p+), it's just not powerful enough. It still works for Xbox games off the hard drive and all the emulators you can handle. My friends and I still play Bomberman and Dr. Mario a lot on it.
What? Should Slashdot be sued for "tipping" because an article was posted here about it? What about the Wall Street Journal, for writing about their stock reclassification? Sue them too?
When it goes public, everyone has the same opportunity to buy it, at the same time no less. What kind of advantage could one gain from knowing about it ahead of time? It goes public when it goes public, not one minute beforehand.
Ever use a Blackberry Storm 9500/9530? It's a touch screen/giant button. There's one button behind the screen and you have to click it down to register a button press. It works ok, but apparently the Storm 2 (9520/9550) is much better in that regard. There are apparently 4 screen buttons, one in each corner and it allows multiple simultaneous button presses, making it much easier to type. The first iteration only allows one at a time. You can do multitouch for things like selecting text, and there used to be a flick-scrolling bug in one of the earlier OS 5.0 leaks that let you scroll down a page about half way if you held 2 fingers on the screen for a moment, but that's been fixed in the official 5.0 release. It was awesome for zipping to the bottom of EULAs hehe.
That being said, I've never used or seen a Storm 2 and I own a Storm 1. It's hard to type without looking, but I'm getting the hang of it. When it comes time to upgrade it, I'm going with a keyboard device, likely the latest version of the Bold or whatever's best at the time. My buddy has a Bold 9000 and it's really nice. I like buttons. Another friend is debating getting a Blackberry and I've recommended against the Storm in favour of a model with a keyboard, like a Curve, Bold or Tour, depending on the operator he chooses. The ones with the new optical trackpads are fantastic.
Sorry if that sounds fanboi-ish but I happen to really like Blackberries and I'm happy I have one, despite the ridiculous monthly bill.
Not really following the funny thread, but this reminded me.. Near Trafalgar there's a decent pizza joint called Fire & Stone. They have lots of different kinds of pizzas. It's fairly cheap (for London) and tastes good, so if you're in the area and hungry, check it out.
Also, don't go everywhere by tube, you won't see anything. Take the bus sometimes, or even walk. We walked from the Winston Churchill bunker (near Buckingham Palace, neat place) to the Imperial War Museum. It took about an hour though, but we got to see a fair bit.
Also if you can skate, you might want to show the Brits how to do it. They're by and large pathetic at it. Last December they had a few outdoor skating rinks set up for people, so they will probably have them again this year. I don't remember where exactly, but if you asked around I'm sure they're not hard to find.
Nevermind changing the entire cord just get a plug adapter, available from any decent travel store in the world, before you leave. Make sure it's grounded (i.e. the long pin is metal not plastic) and has the US/Canada 3 prong socket (not the 2 prong, those are for shavers). Some are universal too and accept European continental plugs and Aussie/NZ slanted ones. UK outlets are pretty well all switched anyways so no chance of a huge spark frying your fingers while trying to plug something in.
Sounds like the approach the UK govt took with BT. They split them up into BT Openreach and BT Phone/Internet. The end result is that the telephone lines are owned by Openreach and every phone company or DSL provider (there are loads) deals with Openreach for access. BT pays the same for access as Tiscali or Be or anyone else. It works well enough from what I can tell (Disclaimer: I'm Canadian but I know a bit about it).
Pretty sure that's their European heritage shining through. In the UK (unsure about any other EU countries) pretty well all the major carriers do this AFAIK...
I think it's T-Mobile's European heritage soaking through since pretty much all carriers in the UK (unsure about other countries) do that. If you're just getting a plan, you save a bit vs. getting a plan and subsidizing the phone.
Grishnakh didn't say it shouldn't be on a network, just not one connected to the Internet.
A private network that is completely disconnected from the Internet would still allow for remote control of the various generating stations while also simultaneously shielding it from remote hackers. One would have to gain physical access to a facility, or somehow physically tap into the network, but even that can be mitigated somewhat by encrypting everything that goes down the pipe.
I'm almost 100% sure that power companies that predate the Internet already have some kind of control network in place that also predates the Internet. An example that I'm familiar with is Manitoba Hydro. Hydro and MTS (phone company) jointly built the first microwave network in 1969 to be able to remotely control distant and isolated dams all over the province from Winnipeg and to carry telephone, television and radio services to the north. They completed a second system in 1977 (for redundancy). I know a guy who was heavily involved way back in the day in automating some of the older stations to be remotely controlled, and also installing and maintaining the microwave towers/base stations. As far as I can tell, Hydro has replaced the microwave network with a 1140km fibre link, and I believe MTS has been using fibre for phones for a few years at least. I'm not sure anyone is still using the microwave network, but the towers are definitely still around. Maybe they're keeping it active in case of a fibre cut or something.
That would be terrible! Imagine having to get tumors removed from the rotors or putting the chemotherapy additives into the poor thing's fuel tank... Sure it would probably be able to fly for a bit, but it would probably crash and start puking up oil everywhere. Awful stuff.
Yeah not remembering parts of my drive happens to me quite often. I think kind of thing only happens on commonly driven routes, like your daily route to work and back. My route is 20/80 city/highway and the highway portion has one set of lights, one 90 turn, a couple minor bends and 1 or 2 stop signs. It's very easy for the mind to wander, especially since there is very little of interest to look at, unless you're really into checking out how well Farmer Joe's crops are doing. It's quite a boring drive so it's also unfortunately quite easy to catch yourself drifting off to sleep if you're tired. I find that when I struggle to stay awake during the drive home, I'm not usually tired anymore when I get out of the car, probably because I'm no longer sitting in a nice comfy seat doing something that requires little to no input... straight road, so no need to steer and with the car on cruise no need to keep my foot on the accelerator.
That butterfly valve is called an Anti-Shudder Valve (ASV) and it's part of the EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) valve assembly. Many people do an EGR delete on the ALH motor (1999.5-2003/2004, can't do it on the newer engines without replacing the entire intake manifold) because in combination with the oily fumes from the crankcase vent causes the intake manifold to soot up and restrict airflow. In most cases this is a very easy process involving a bolt on part called a Race Pipe in TDI lingo. I've done this, but I modified the EGR valve itself and kept the anti-shudder valve intact. Without it, when you shut off the car, all you're doing is shutting off the fuel pump, which causes the car to run itself out of fuel and it shudders a lot, which I really didn't like. With the ASV intact, when you turn the car off, you activate a vacuum solenoid which closes the ASV for 3 seconds, cutting off the engine's air supply and causing it a nice smooth shutdown.
In the event of a turbo failure, like you described, you don't have long to shut off the car before you get chunks of turbo and hot engine oil going through your cylinders. If you don't have an ASV you're pretty screwed and you probably just cost yourself a motor. In the event of a runaway the recommended practice is to shut off the car as soon as you can after the turbo blows (you have to be VERY quick though as the window is quite small, maybe a second or so). If you caught it in time it'll shut off and you just have to replace the turbo, do an oil change and clean out the intercooler and intake pipes after the turbo, but the motor is probably just fine. The ASV closing will stop the hot oil and chunks of metal from getting into the cylinders. If you didn't catch it in time and it's still running away you need to put it in 5th to hopefully bog it down below 1900rpm (peak torque) and stand on the brake, or you could just wait until it pops.
The best way to ensure that this doesn't happen to you is to be vigilant about oil change intervals (follow the recommendations in the owner's manual) and to use the right kind of oil (again, see the manual). The turbo needs oil for cooling and lubrication. Also don't idle the car excessively because the turbo's seals work best when they're under pressure, which they definitely aren't at idle. If you start your car 20 minutes before leaving for work expecting it to be nice and warm by the time you leave, you're wasting your time with a TDI. You need to drive it to warm it up. That's what heated seats are for:)
On old VW diesels (circa 1979-1980) there was a recall because the crankcase vent vented right into the top of the airbox and oily fumes were sucked through and soaked into the air filter and condensed into liquid over time. This would pool and get sucked into the engine and cause short runaways until the pooled oil was burned up. The solution was the reroute the CCV's entry point to somewhere in the system after the air filter.
My car (2002 VW Jetta TDI) has a drive by wire system and if you are moving, pressing the go pedal and the brake at the same time cancels the input from the go pedal. Imagine you're driving at night and an animal jumps out in front of you and you hammer the brake but your foot isn't quite centred and you hit the throttle at the same time. This prevents that from having any effect. You can floor it and nothing happens till you take your foot off the brake. If you're stationary you can have the brakes on and rev the engine. The only annoying thing is that if you want to flash your brake lights at some douche behind you who hasn't shut off their brights, you end up slowing down a bit because it cancels the throttle.
Does Toyota's system have a failsafe like this? There really aren't any reason why you'd have to push the gas and the brake at the same time if you're moving.
This reminds me of what a complete and utter idiot told me one... she said "I know the solution to all the world's poverty problems.. give everyone a million dollars and no one will be poor anymore!" Needless to say I laughed for a really long time. What an idiot.
Unless you're talking in CFL terms, which wrongly places Winnipeg in the East division due to the lack of teams out that way, you're mistaken.
I know I'm being pedantic here, but do you know where the longitudinal center of Canada is? There are signs on the Trans Canada marking it's location at 96 48' 35" West (or -96.809722). If you look closely you can see the shadows of the signs marking it (one English, one French) in the middle of the page. In fact, this line is a mere 785 feet East of our front door. I measured with Google Earth so it might not be perfectly exact, but it's close enough for me.
I'm not sure if it's an offense to smoke when someone under the age of 16 is in the car or not in Ontario. That is coming here in Manitoba. We also have a handheld device ban coming soon. We're currently in the public awareness phase at the moment, so it's due to become enforceable shortly. A couple weeks ago the cops pulled up beside my buddy and used hand signals to kindly let him know that he should hang up and drive.
There are any number of reasons why this might have happened, here are a few:
- There might have been diplomatic/foreign trade considerations to take into account, like a large trade deficit with Italy. - Perhaps the company that makes the Beretta tendered the lowest bid (the most likely scenario in my opinion). - Perhaps a "Buy American" clause would have had the US dragged before a WTO tribunal by the countries that were shut out of the bidding process and they wanted to avoid that.
I do understand where you're coming from though, because in terms of national security, military tech SHOULD be designed and manufactured at home, perhaps even in house (i.e. directly by the military). Wasn't there some Cisco network equipment made in China that had back doors built in? I think I remember hearing about that a little while ago. That obviously has some security consequences, how dire depends on who uses it and where.
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My apologies! I forgot that this is a global forum and I didn't really explain that as thoroughly as I should have. If you don't live anywhere near where it's below freezing for months at a time, you've likely never seen a plug hanging off the front of a car.
It's like any regular engine block heater, it plugs into the wall. In case you've never heard of a block heater, it's a heating element that is inserted into one of the freeze plugs in the engine's cooling jacket to warm the coolant in the engine when plugged into the wall, no battery power required. These typically operate at about 400W. VW's TDI engines from 1999.5 onward have no freeze plugs (I don't know why), so we have to do things a bit differently. I've got mine on a timer that starts at 4am and runs till 8am. That's all it needs really.
Thanks for providing that link. That engine is fascinating. It's like a 4 cylinder in 2 cylinders. They are also developing a turbo that incorporates an electric motor to provide supercharging at lower rpms before the exhaust velocity is high enough to drive the compressor. Very interesting company to say the least!
That's why pretty much any TDI owner in the colder climes with 2 brain cells in his/her head installs a Temro Zerostart coolant heater (a.k.a. Frostheater if you buy the kit from them). You can get 750W, 1000W and 1500W and they go right in-line with the oil cooler in the coolant hose circuit. Most people use the 1000W model, including myself. I've been using mine for about a week now and the car starts like you just shut it off, at operating temperature (90 Celcius, 190 Fahrenheit) no less! Don't worry about leaving it plugged in too long because it's got a built in thermostat.
VW does have an OEM kit, but it's like $189 and it's only 450W, but apparently they work quite well. The heater is made by Calix. However, the Zerostart kit, with all the hoses and everything you need to install it, will cost you around $100 and it does a much better job.
Lots of cheap stealerships install a crappy stick on oil pan heating element. Those are usually 125W but you can get 250W models. They are more expensive than the Zerostart setup and burn out relatively quickly. They are also a potential fire hazard.
I've got a 2002 Jetta TDI myself, but I like to be able to hear my engines. In fact I've advanced the injection timing at idle 5 from stock (which on mine was 0.6 BTDC at idle). This gives me much better fuel economy and a bit more power too. All you need is a Ross-Tech VAG-COM or equivalent $20 Ebay knockoff and it takes about 2 minutes to do, all on the computer. The motor will immediately sound different, better in my opinion, but it is louder and actually sounds like a diesel afterwards. It's also completely reversible if you don't like it, but I suspect the few extra MPG you'll get will more than make up for it.
The quick and dirty howto is: With the car running, plug in the VAG-COM to the computer and the OBD2 port, open up the VAG-COM software, click Engine, login with 12233, click Adaptation, pick Channel 3, 4 or 5 (can't remember off the top of my head) and you will see the injection timing BTDC and a couple other measurements. Add 100 to the default of 32768 for each degree of advance you want. The maximum is 5 degrees in software, any more and you have to rotate the injection pump under the hood (not for beginners!). It's fine grained so you could go 1.25 degrees if you want by adding 125. I just added 500 (33268) and tested and saved. That's it. Your fuel economy instantly improves. If you don't like it, set it back to 32768 and save it, and your motor will go back to sounding like it did before.
NB: You can only do this on the injection pump style motor, the venerable ALH, which was installed from 1999.5 to 2003. The PD style motors (BRM, BEW, BHW) were installed from 2004-2006.5 and you can't do this adaptation. On the newer common rail motors (CBEA) it's also not possible (2009+). I'm talking North American engines and model years here, I'm not well versed on the European models.
Either way, check out the TDIClub if you're not already a member on the forums. Tons of little tricks and tips to make your TDI'ing much more pleasant. That's where I learned everything I know about them.
As for the newer motors being quieter, yes they are. My mom drives a 2009 TDI and you can barely hear the engine at all from inside the car. Standing outside next to it, it's barely noticeable that it's even a diesel. Tons of power and can VERY easily get you into trouble with radar-wielding cops.
I still use XBMC on my original Xbox for watching movies and TV shows. I have a FreeNAS server serving up the CIFS shares which hold the movies and TV shows and it Just Works. I don't bother with a box to record broadcast TV, I just download the torrents.
The only thing it doesn't do is play HD (720p+), it's just not powerful enough. It still works for Xbox games off the hard drive and all the emulators you can handle. My friends and I still play Bomberman and Dr. Mario a lot on it.
What? Should Slashdot be sued for "tipping" because an article was posted here about it? What about the Wall Street Journal, for writing about their stock reclassification? Sue them too?
When it goes public, everyone has the same opportunity to buy it, at the same time no less. What kind of advantage could one gain from knowing about it ahead of time? It goes public when it goes public, not one minute beforehand.
Ever use a Blackberry Storm 9500/9530? It's a touch screen/giant button. There's one button behind the screen and you have to click it down to register a button press. It works ok, but apparently the Storm 2 (9520/9550) is much better in that regard. There are apparently 4 screen buttons, one in each corner and it allows multiple simultaneous button presses, making it much easier to type. The first iteration only allows one at a time. You can do multitouch for things like selecting text, and there used to be a flick-scrolling bug in one of the earlier OS 5.0 leaks that let you scroll down a page about half way if you held 2 fingers on the screen for a moment, but that's been fixed in the official 5.0 release. It was awesome for zipping to the bottom of EULAs hehe.
That being said, I've never used or seen a Storm 2 and I own a Storm 1. It's hard to type without looking, but I'm getting the hang of it. When it comes time to upgrade it, I'm going with a keyboard device, likely the latest version of the Bold or whatever's best at the time. My buddy has a Bold 9000 and it's really nice. I like buttons. Another friend is debating getting a Blackberry and I've recommended against the Storm in favour of a model with a keyboard, like a Curve, Bold or Tour, depending on the operator he chooses. The ones with the new optical trackpads are fantastic.
Sorry if that sounds fanboi-ish but I happen to really like Blackberries and I'm happy I have one, despite the ridiculous monthly bill.
Not really following the funny thread, but this reminded me.. Near Trafalgar there's a decent pizza joint called Fire & Stone. They have lots of different kinds of pizzas. It's fairly cheap (for London) and tastes good, so if you're in the area and hungry, check it out.
Also, don't go everywhere by tube, you won't see anything. Take the bus sometimes, or even walk. We walked from the Winston Churchill bunker (near Buckingham Palace, neat place) to the Imperial War Museum. It took about an hour though, but we got to see a fair bit.
Also if you can skate, you might want to show the Brits how to do it. They're by and large pathetic at it. Last December they had a few outdoor skating rinks set up for people, so they will probably have them again this year. I don't remember where exactly, but if you asked around I'm sure they're not hard to find.
Nevermind changing the entire cord just get a plug adapter, available from any decent travel store in the world, before you leave. Make sure it's grounded (i.e. the long pin is metal not plastic) and has the US/Canada 3 prong socket (not the 2 prong, those are for shavers). Some are universal too and accept European continental plugs and Aussie/NZ slanted ones. UK outlets are pretty well all switched anyways so no chance of a huge spark frying your fingers while trying to plug something in.
Sounds like the approach the UK govt took with BT. They split them up into BT Openreach and BT Phone/Internet. The end result is that the telephone lines are owned by Openreach and every phone company or DSL provider (there are loads) deals with Openreach for access. BT pays the same for access as Tiscali or Be or anyone else. It works well enough from what I can tell (Disclaimer: I'm Canadian but I know a bit about it).
Are you referring to these Spaceballs?
May the Schwartz be with you!
Sure! You've got Walhalla (Viking heaven) right there on State Hwy 32 just a stone's throw away from Canada!
All jokes aside, Frostfire is actually decent for downhill skiing hehe. Not much else going on in Walhalla though.
Pretty sure that's their European heritage shining through. In the UK (unsure about any other EU countries) pretty well all the major carriers do this AFAIK...
I think it's T-Mobile's European heritage soaking through since pretty much all carriers in the UK (unsure about other countries) do that. If you're just getting a plan, you save a bit vs. getting a plan and subsidizing the phone.
Grishnakh didn't say it shouldn't be on a network, just not one connected to the Internet.
A private network that is completely disconnected from the Internet would still allow for remote control of the various generating stations while also simultaneously shielding it from remote hackers. One would have to gain physical access to a facility, or somehow physically tap into the network, but even that can be mitigated somewhat by encrypting everything that goes down the pipe.
I'm almost 100% sure that power companies that predate the Internet already have some kind of control network in place that also predates the Internet. An example that I'm familiar with is Manitoba Hydro. Hydro and MTS (phone company) jointly built the first microwave network in 1969 to be able to remotely control distant and isolated dams all over the province from Winnipeg and to carry telephone, television and radio services to the north. They completed a second system in 1977 (for redundancy). I know a guy who was heavily involved way back in the day in automating some of the older stations to be remotely controlled, and also installing and maintaining the microwave towers/base stations. As far as I can tell, Hydro has replaced the microwave network with a 1140km fibre link, and I believe MTS has been using fibre for phones for a few years at least. I'm not sure anyone is still using the microwave network, but the towers are definitely still around. Maybe they're keeping it active in case of a fibre cut or something.
Well at least it'll be finished before Duke Nukem Forever!
That would be terrible! Imagine having to get tumors removed from the rotors or putting the chemotherapy additives into the poor thing's fuel tank... Sure it would probably be able to fly for a bit, but it would probably crash and start puking up oil everywhere. Awful stuff.
Yeah not remembering parts of my drive happens to me quite often. I think kind of thing only happens on commonly driven routes, like your daily route to work and back. My route is 20/80 city/highway and the highway portion has one set of lights, one 90 turn, a couple minor bends and 1 or 2 stop signs. It's very easy for the mind to wander, especially since there is very little of interest to look at, unless you're really into checking out how well Farmer Joe's crops are doing. It's quite a boring drive so it's also unfortunately quite easy to catch yourself drifting off to sleep if you're tired. I find that when I struggle to stay awake during the drive home, I'm not usually tired anymore when I get out of the car, probably because I'm no longer sitting in a nice comfy seat doing something that requires little to no input... straight road, so no need to steer and with the car on cruise no need to keep my foot on the accelerator.
That butterfly valve is called an Anti-Shudder Valve (ASV) and it's part of the EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) valve assembly. Many people do an EGR delete on the ALH motor (1999.5-2003/2004, can't do it on the newer engines without replacing the entire intake manifold) because in combination with the oily fumes from the crankcase vent causes the intake manifold to soot up and restrict airflow. In most cases this is a very easy process involving a bolt on part called a Race Pipe in TDI lingo. I've done this, but I modified the EGR valve itself and kept the anti-shudder valve intact. Without it, when you shut off the car, all you're doing is shutting off the fuel pump, which causes the car to run itself out of fuel and it shudders a lot, which I really didn't like. With the ASV intact, when you turn the car off, you activate a vacuum solenoid which closes the ASV for 3 seconds, cutting off the engine's air supply and causing it a nice smooth shutdown.
In the event of a turbo failure, like you described, you don't have long to shut off the car before you get chunks of turbo and hot engine oil going through your cylinders. If you don't have an ASV you're pretty screwed and you probably just cost yourself a motor. In the event of a runaway the recommended practice is to shut off the car as soon as you can after the turbo blows (you have to be VERY quick though as the window is quite small, maybe a second or so). If you caught it in time it'll shut off and you just have to replace the turbo, do an oil change and clean out the intercooler and intake pipes after the turbo, but the motor is probably just fine. The ASV closing will stop the hot oil and chunks of metal from getting into the cylinders. If you didn't catch it in time and it's still running away you need to put it in 5th to hopefully bog it down below 1900rpm (peak torque) and stand on the brake, or you could just wait until it pops.
The best way to ensure that this doesn't happen to you is to be vigilant about oil change intervals (follow the recommendations in the owner's manual) and to use the right kind of oil (again, see the manual). The turbo needs oil for cooling and lubrication. Also don't idle the car excessively because the turbo's seals work best when they're under pressure, which they definitely aren't at idle. If you start your car 20 minutes before leaving for work expecting it to be nice and warm by the time you leave, you're wasting your time with a TDI. You need to drive it to warm it up. That's what heated seats are for :)
On old VW diesels (circa 1979-1980) there was a recall because the crankcase vent vented right into the top of the airbox and oily fumes were sucked through and soaked into the air filter and condensed into liquid over time. This would pool and get sucked into the engine and cause short runaways until the pooled oil was burned up. The solution was the reroute the CCV's entry point to somewhere in the system after the air filter.
My car (2002 VW Jetta TDI) has a drive by wire system and if you are moving, pressing the go pedal and the brake at the same time cancels the input from the go pedal. Imagine you're driving at night and an animal jumps out in front of you and you hammer the brake but your foot isn't quite centred and you hit the throttle at the same time. This prevents that from having any effect. You can floor it and nothing happens till you take your foot off the brake. If you're stationary you can have the brakes on and rev the engine. The only annoying thing is that if you want to flash your brake lights at some douche behind you who hasn't shut off their brights, you end up slowing down a bit because it cancels the throttle.
Does Toyota's system have a failsafe like this? There really aren't any reason why you'd have to push the gas and the brake at the same time if you're moving.
This reminds me of what a complete and utter idiot told me one... she said "I know the solution to all the world's poverty problems.. give everyone a million dollars and no one will be poor anymore!" Needless to say I laughed for a really long time. What an idiot.
Unless you're talking in CFL terms, which wrongly places Winnipeg in the East division due to the lack of teams out that way, you're mistaken.
I know I'm being pedantic here, but do you know where the longitudinal center of Canada is? There are signs on the Trans Canada marking it's location at 96 48' 35" West (or -96.809722). If you look closely you can see the shadows of the signs marking it (one English, one French) in the middle of the page. In fact, this line is a mere 785 feet East of our front door. I measured with Google Earth so it might not be perfectly exact, but it's close enough for me.
Manitoba is DEFINITELY a Western province.
Also don't forget you can't smoke while driving a commercial or work vehicle because it's a workplace, and you're not allowed to smoke in workplaces, even if they're your own property and you're the only one there!
I'm not sure if it's an offense to smoke when someone under the age of 16 is in the car or not in Ontario. That is coming here in Manitoba. We also have a handheld device ban coming soon. We're currently in the public awareness phase at the moment, so it's due to become enforceable shortly. A couple weeks ago the cops pulled up beside my buddy and used hand signals to kindly let him know that he should hang up and drive.
There are any number of reasons why this might have happened, here are a few:
- There might have been diplomatic/foreign trade considerations to take into account, like a large trade deficit with Italy.
- Perhaps the company that makes the Beretta tendered the lowest bid (the most likely scenario in my opinion).
- Perhaps a "Buy American" clause would have had the US dragged before a WTO tribunal by the countries that were shut out of the bidding process and they wanted to avoid that.
I do understand where you're coming from though, because in terms of national security, military tech SHOULD be designed and manufactured at home, perhaps even in house (i.e. directly by the military). Wasn't there some Cisco network equipment made in China that had back doors built in? I think I remember hearing about that a little while ago. That obviously has some security consequences, how dire depends on who uses it and where.
The EFF has an email address for just such a purpose. You can find the link at the bottom of TFA. Perhaps you should let them know about it.