Tag Archives: car

2010 SoCal TT

Posted on by
Reply

This weekend, my friend Brad and I took part in the SoCal TT, an organised classic car drive from Los Angeles to Los Alamos a small town to the north in Santa Barbara county. The drive would take us on kinds of picturesque back roads and take in over 500 miles on the round trip. All of this would be undertaken in Brad’s 1969 Triumph Spitfire that I have helped to rehabilitate over the last couple of years.

We had a fantastic time and the car performed wonderfully. It was great tour of some very pretty parts of southern California that I hadn’t been to before and some great deserted back roads to have fun on. It was a very friendly group of people taking part and a mix of old cars in various conditions.

I have uploaded the photos we took to the gallery here.

Can’t wait to do it again next year!

UPDATE: There is also now video!

The Spitfire running in the 2010 SoCal TT from Brad Williams on Vimeo.

Roadtrip!!!

Posted on by
Reply

I’m a dreamer. I’m perhaps my happiest when plotting and immersing myself in the intricate planning of a new excessive purchase, hypothetical lottery win or exotic trip. Recently I’ve found myself hankering over a roadtrip, but one of almost epic proportions.

For years, I’ve wanted to explore the US by road. Having only visited a few major cities across this huge nation, I feel there is so much left to see. I started wondering what a roadtrip around the country to take in the key spots would involve.

First off, I asked myself, where in the US would I want to visit. The places that pop into my head are:

  • Grand Canyon
  • Austin, TX
  • New Orleans, LA
  • Memphis, TN
  • Savannah, GA
  • The South in general
  • Washington DC
  • Boston, MA
  • Phildephia, PA
  • Chicago, IL

With those spots in mind I set about seeing what a route would look like.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/fHQ5m41PzGyxuyBV7

Click to see the map in more detail..

There are definitely areas that this route doesn’t cover, but it would be hard to see everything.

7000 miles is no short trip!! I’d need at least a month and the reality would be a couple of hundred miles a day in the car on average…. by myself. Cost wise, about $500 for gas and several times that for accommodation and food.

Clearly this is no easy task, but it would also be a trip of a lifetime.

Question is, on a trip like this, what should I not miss out on and where should I definitely go?

I’m an idiot…

Posted on by
2

It’s the not the first time it’s been said, but today I have to agree.

About three months ago, I punctured one of the tires on my car after hitting a very aggressive and unforgiving pothole. The puncture immediately activated the car’s tire pressure warning system, which would activate a little light on the dashboard and give me a “tire pressure too low” warning on the screen. I took the car to my local Pep Boys tire repair center and had the whole tire replaced. However, the warning light stayed on. Things were a little hectic in my life at the time, so I never really got around to working out why the light hadn’t gone off, I checked the pressure and everything seemed to be ok.

Jump forward a few months and we arrive at today, when I finally get around to taking my car into the dealership to have the problem looked at. The man at VW, told me that it was quite common that the pressure sensors could be damaged when replacing the tire and that it might need to be replaced. Of course my instant thought was that I was probably going to end up $500 out of pocket to stop some stupid light coming on, but it was worth getting fixed. A couple of hours later I get a call from the man. “Hello Mr. Tonkin, I have some good news. We checked all the sensors and the computer and we can’t find any faults. We did check the tire pressure though and it was 10 PSI low on all the tires. We just topped it up and the light went off”. I felt so embarrassed and actually apologized for wasting his time. I can only imagine the ridiculing I must have been getting in the service dept.

The silver lining is that they must have thought I was mentally challenged and felt sorry for me, because they waived the usual $57 diagnostic charge. I guess it would have been a little unfair for them to charge me $57 to put air in the tires.

I still think they must have reset something, because I know I checked the pressure several times and I don’t know why I would have set it to 20PSI, maybe I am mentally challenged?!

Anyway, it’s all fixed and no money spent….just loads of unnecessary wear and tear on my tires for the last few months!