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Los Angeles DIY Mechanic

Automobile design: Less is more

Because Unitized Vehicles don’t have separate frames, their integrity is designed into the structural panels welded together to form that ...
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Oil crisis effects automobile design

In the 1970’s, some of you may remember that there was an Oil Crisis in the United States; which required many of us to wait in long lines...
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Understanding Diagnostic Trouble Codes

My first experience with a scan tool over twenty years ago was a dizzying experience. What does all this data mean, and how do I apply it to my...
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Parasitic Draw - The Silent Killer

Your battery went dead for no apparent reason, so you replaced it. The same thing happened a week later, so you recharged the battery and replaced...
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Protective Gear for Motorcyclists is Cheap Insurance

Nobody wakes up in the morning and says “I think I’ll go for a ride today. And while I’m at it, I think I’ll fall, break a...
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Summer wind or air conditioning?

There's a heat wave a'comin in SoCal this week. So it's a good time to check in on our mythological fuel efficiency killer: air conditioning. There...
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Goofy Walker: not a hypermiler

A friend forwarded along this old Disney cartoon, directed by Jack Kinney. It's called Motor Mania (1950), which was a was of saying "road...
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KITT with the program, cruise control saves gas

Not all of us have an artificially-intelligent Trans Am that has turbo-boosters, shoots laser beams, and drives for us while we sleep. But the...
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Zen and the art of hypermiling

I'm not really into golf, but I can see why golfers would make good hypermilers.Both require a zen approach and patience, the practitioners knowing...
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The hypermiler's carrot: tracking your MPG

Now that you've started practicing some of the basic hypermiling techniques, it's time for the reward: tracking your gas mileage.If you drive a...
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