Shameless Self-promotion

Dexter

Blame the dog. It's all his fault. He kept me from regularly updating this blog and providing links to my content in a timely fashion.

Actually, like the proverbial dog that ate my homework, poor Dexter here had nothing at all to do with my lackadaisical web-keeping.

Part of it has to do with ongoing changes at the Toronto Star in terms of its online content. Where once pretty much anything that saw print in the Wheels section would find its way onto the Wheels.ca website, several reworkings and some personnel and strategy changes made that hit and miss. Now, content can sometimes be found there, or sometimes at the "Autos" tab on the Star's home page, or sometimes neither.

I'll try to stay on top of this. In the meantime, here's a back catalog of many of the articles that I have not yet linked to.

Good Doggie!

2016 Mazda MX-5 (a.k.a. Miata)

2015 Canadian International Auto Show (Toronto) - Small Cars to expect - February 20th, 2015

Find my coverage of what interesting small cars to watch for - including Mazda's latest generation MX-5 - at the Toronto auto show here.

2016 Cadillac CTS-V

2015 Canadian International Auto Show (Toronto) - Cadillac press conference coverage - February 16th, 2015

Find my coverage of Cadillac's new from the Toronto auto show, which included the CTS-V, here.

2016 Nissan Titan XD

2015 Canadian International Auto Show (Toronto) - Nissan press conference coverage - February 15th, 2015

Find my coverage of Nissan's news from the Toronto auto show, which included the Nissan Titan XD, here.

2014 Cadillac ATS4 2.0T at speed

 
2014 Cadillac ATS4 2.0T - December 12th, 2014

Find my review of Cadillac's very good ATS sedan here.

2015 Honda Fit

 
2015 Canadian Car of the Year Test Fest coverage (Best New Small Car Under $21k) - November 3rd, 2014

Find my coverage of the Best New Small Car (under $21k) in AJAC's 2015 Canadian Car of the Year, which was later won by the Honda Fit, here.

2015 Buick Enclave

2015 Buick Enclave - August 26th, 2014

Find my review of Buick's 2015 Enclave here.

Speedbump/Chevy the cat

Cat-astrophe - A tail from the dark side of cars - August 22, 2014

Find my story about the surprise that I had at work one day here.

Sadly, though it looked like it would be a happy ending at the time the story was published, it ultimately did not end well. After coming down with some sort of respiratory infection, Chevy, as he became named by the shelter, was put on antibiotics, but did not respond to treatment. As his condition deteriorated, they had no real option but to put him down.

If there's an upside to this, the story did generate considerable foot traffic and awareness for the shelter, so it is doubtless that several of Chevy's peers found good homes as a result.

Jackass Award - Canadian Tire's Core Charge Policy

A Canadian Tire store - this is not the one where this adventure takes place.

In my opinion, Canadian Tire is pulling a scam. 

(Be warned: A Tolstoy-rivalling epic follows.)

Always seems to happen on the weekend, right after my "first call" parts supplier is closed, that I end up needing some kind of auto part for one of my fleet.

This time, the battery in my wife's car, a two and a half year-old Interstate "5 year" battery that ironically replaced the previous battery that died on a weekend. That's why I ended up with an Interstate (another one of my suppliers that was still open carries them). The only other Interstate battery I've ever bought died young too. This will be my last.

Old and New - Note the core tag still on the new one's negative terminal.

I figured that Canadian Tire would be likely to have both the best selection and the freshest stock, so I headed there. Their nationwide warranty doesn't hurt either. I also needed to buy a 10mm wrench and a battery terminal brush to do the swap, as my tools were at work and home, not with me, so one-stop shopping, right?

First off, the parts counter guy looks up her '96 Nissan Maxima, pulls up listings, and says about my choice of a 48 month mid-range battery, "this one will be way better than original, because the original only had 360 cold cranking amps." Look close at the image and you'll see that it clearly indicates that all Canadian models used the optional, 585 CCA battery, a fact I already knew from owning 7 Nissans. (We also got standard low washer fluid lights - yay Nissan Canada!)

It doesn't change the outcome, but I'm of the mindset that if you really don't know something, trying to sound like you do and being wrong is much worse, so say nothing.

The original look-up result - a Group 75DT battery. The wrong right battery.

He comes back with a dual-terminal Group 75 battery - a standard size for most pre-2005 GM vehicles. Would it fit? With enough screwing around, I could certainly make it function. That doesn't make it right.

"This car takes a Group 24F battery", I inform him. "Oh," (fiddles with the computer) "you're right." Goes and gets it. It's slightly more expensive. I don't care. It's correct for the application.

Ahh, that's better. The right right battery. Even if it is more expensive.

Now, to be fair, this gentleman was actually very helpful, and it's not entirely his fault that the system points him in that direction. It's here, however, where Canadian Tire's scam starts:

Core Charge.

A "core" is the old part being replaced. Core charges are like the deposit on your beer bottles that encourage you to return them. Automotive cores are either rebuilt (calipers, alternators, etc.) or reclaimed (batteries, among others). This is a long-standing practice that makes a lot of sense. In the case of the battery, it's $20, which is pretty closely aligned with what a scrap metal place will pay you for it.

I have no problem with this, and as my wife's old battery was still out in her car waiting to be removed with the tools that I was buying alongside the battery, I had no qualms about paying it. Please note that the $20 was added onto the price of the battery. It shows as "XCore" in the item line.

Swapped the battery in less than 5 minutes - easily, as it actually fit in the hold-down and plastic heat insulator because it's - gasp! - the right size - and went inside to return the old battery to get the core charge back.

After being ignored at the parts desk for just over 15 minutes while others got served and service advisors just feet away chatted with their buddies (my helpful parts guy, it turns out, had gone on his lunch break), we finally grabbed the attention of someone capable of dealing with such a complex endeavour, and were directed to the customer service desk to get our refund...

...where we spent another 5-10 minutes waiting for the poor harried cashier and her supervisor to try and explain for the umpteenth time something battery return-related to the customer ahead of us. My patience had about exited the building by now.

Finally, time to get our money back! We're handed back a $20 bill.

Sounds fine, right? That's the scam!

Remember, the $20 was added to the price of the battery. That total was taxed! We actually paid $22.60. It took several run-throughs before the two staffers grasped this concept.

See the battery? "Motomaster ELM2" - $129.99, with the $20 core charge added in.

"That's how the system does it, automatically!", says the girl, explaining that the core charge return function only allows her to refund the $20.

Listen, it's only $2.60, and the supervisor tried to give us the money out of his pocket when it became clear after several minutes that we weren't just going to leave.

That's not the point.

Canadian Tire has been selling batteries for over 75 years, and they don't just blindly hand extra tax dollars over to the government. You know, absolutely know, that at some point someone in Accounting discovered that the amount of tax collected didn't jibe with the amount of taxable merchandise sold. You can't tell me that they aren't aware of this discrepancy.

Their system will have provision for non-taxable items, which a core charge is. Instead, I believe that they rightly figure that most people won't clue in to this overcharge, and of those that do, very, very few will force the issue.

In our case, after I threatened to go back out to the car to get the battery to return it, they readjusted the price and did a refund for the correct amount.

This is how it got fixed - a work-around.

Given that Canadian Tire is likely the largest Canadian retailer of automotive batteries, and that they cater to the DIY'er crowd, many of whom will end up paying the core charge, if I'm right, it's a pretty big scam, gleaned $2.60 at a time.

If I'm wrong, it's a system flaw that costs Canadian consumers tens of thousands of dollars or more a year. Either way, Canadian Tire is greatly deserving of a Jackass Award.

Jackass Award - Dell Printers

Dell 1250c colour laser printer - Photo borrowed from www.archiwum.allegro.pl

Over the years I've owned and disposed of - properly, I might add - enough dot matrix, inkjet, and laser printers to have nearly lost count. With the dot matrix printers, obsolescence was what finally killed them, though I did make it through several ribbons with my old Citizen before it finally got retired.

I was once given an old Hewlett-Packard LaserJet+, probably a first or second generation machine that weighed as much as a tank and was nearly as durable, sucking enough power that the lights in my computer room dimmed noticeably when it spooled up, creating this unmistakeable aura of ozone as it hummed, throbbed, clunked, and eventually theatrically discharged each sheet of paper. Already having occasional paper feed issues, its imaging drum finally succumbed to age, and the cost of repairing it made about as much sense as body-off restoring a Ford Festiva, so it was walked behind the barn and mercifully shot.

Since that time, every printer that has found its way into The Basement Of No Return or actually made it to the electronic recycler has gone that way because it ran out of ink or toner. I don't know what that stuff is made of, but forget splashing around the $3000 bottle of Richard Hennessey Cognac - really rich people pour out inkjet ink and sprinkle some toner on it.

Lexmark got more than enough of my money with its fussy, failure-prone inkjet printers (I didn't learn the first time), whose cartridge-mounted inkjet tips clogged or dried out with alarming regularity, giving both printers the overall reliability of a high-mileage Trabant. Not that the apparent thimble-full of ink in each $70+ cartridge lasted long anyways. A later Canon scanner/printer proved to have better inkjet nozzles, but just as large and expensive an appetite for ink. My last inkjet, it lives on as a flatbed scanner.

Samsung actually makes really good laser printers, and at around $100 for B&W, not quite double that on-sale for equally good colour models, they're a deal. But - and you knew this was coming - like most new printers, they ship with "starter" size toner cartridges. Replacing them with a real one costs slightly more than the printer did new (B&W), or quite a bit more than the printer did new, in the case of the colour machines, which hold four of these apparently unobtanium-filled cartridges.

Look closely: This is a "Ship-With" size cartridge. Dell's by no means alone in using this bait-and-switch scam. Just ship the damn printer with a full-size cartridge! I'll pay more upfront. Really.

Commercial-grade machines cost more new, and sometimes even ship with real toner cartridges. Replacing the toner cartridge makes some sense when the B&W printer in question costs more than $250. Credit where credit is due: They do last - the Dell machine my workplace uses has printed bales of paper, consuming several toner cartridges in the process, lives in a hellish environment of dust and temperature fluctuations, and yet still works perfectly. Though I've personally bought a pair of Samsungs (money talks!), I've been a proponent of Dell printers for commercial use based on the longevity and reliability of this and the previous office printer, whose automatic paper feed stopped working properly after what would be several lifetimes for many lesser printers.

Here's the thing. In every case, without exception, all of these printers all continued to work up to and past the point where their ink or toner ran out, even our business machines (the old Dell would still work if fed paper manually). Citizen, Lexmark, Canon, Dell, HP - it doesn't matter. Witness my current Samsung (seen below), which has been telling me it's out of every toner colour for several months now, yet keeps on printing the few pages a month that I ask of it.

No, seriously, I'm out of toner. Hello? Guys? Oh, fine then. I'll keep working.

Eventually, the print quality will go away, or the print itself will become patchy or faded, and then I'll know it's time to pony up or pitch out.



Not so with the Dell 1250c colour laser printer. Nope. We use this on the alignment rack at work to print out sheets with before and after readings for our customers. It also gets used to print out diagnostic flow charts and wiring diagrams (where the colour is very helpful). To be fair, it's been warning us that it's getting low for a little while now, and we probably should have got a new cartridge in for stock. Like anyone ever does that.

This past Friday afternoon it decided that it was out of black toner. Never mind that the last page it printed was absolutely perfect - not a flaw, fade, or spot to be seen. No. It was out of toner RIGHTNOWDAMMIT and that was that. No way to clear the message or reset it. Put in toner or No Print For You!

So what you're trying to tell me is that you're out of toner? It "need" to be replaced now!

I would bet $100 that there's enough toner left to print another 50 sheets. We'll never know, as it can't be fooled into going that extra mile. That sucks for the environment, sure (wasted toner, added landfill sooner), but it really sucks for the consumer, who gets an immediate cease in printing, rather than the hey-I'm-really-not-kidding heads-up of diminishing print quality as incentive to actually buy - or in Dell's case, order - a new cartridge. Oh, and that consumer also gets ripped off however many printable pages actually remained in the original toner cartridges, as I'm sure the other three will behave the same.

This was somewhat of a pain in the ass for me, as the particular alignment I'd just completed was for a body shop, and they absolutely have to have a copy of the spec sheet for their customers and the insurance companies they deal with.

Consequently, I had to pull the colour laser printer out of the cabinet, drag the big monochrome laser printer/anvil out of the office, hook it up, discover that this computer doesn't have the right drivers, and isn't connected to the internet to download them, go into the office to search for and download the drivers onto a USB drive, install the new drivers in the shop computer, uninstall the colour printer so that our alignment software would recognize and use the B&W printer, print the one F'ing page that I needed printed, unhook the office printer, reinstall the now-paperweight of a colour printer, and finally uninstall the B&W printer, so that when my boss replaces the toner cartridge in the colour machine, the alignment software will recognize and use that printer again. Not that I was at all annoyed by the process. Thank you, Dell, and by "Thank", I don't actually mean "Thank".

Sadly, I was going to replace my two essentially out of toner lasers soon, possibly with at least one Dell machine, but I'm not so sure now. I'm actually feeling a pang of regret for recommending Dell machines to a good friend who's just starting up his new business, despite the fact that I expect his printers to work and last well.

Therefore, for installing a purely software-created jackpot of an inconvenience with no possible positive other than to line your pockets just that little bit sooner - and for making me feel bad - I'm awarding you, Dell, with a well-deserved Jackass Award.

Learning Something New

2006 Ford Escape 3.0L

This was something I'd never seen before. The 2006 Ford Escape V6 seen above belonged to a new customer, and it had made it to our shop under its own power, but just barely, running on at most 4 of its 6 cylinders. Truthfully, I'm amazed it did make it, because it took several attempts to reverse it up a slight incline to get it out of its parking spot and bring it in.

Like virtually all modern gasoline powered vehicles, this particular model uses individual coils for each cylinder, located immediately above the spark plugs, a design known as "coil on plug" (COP). Ford's COP systems seem to be more failure prone than most, though everyone has these things fail from time to time.

So the coil failures were nothing new. This truck had codes for the control circuits on two of the affected coils, which of course would be on the rear bank of cylinders, necessitating removal of the upper intake manifold or plenum.

Upper intake manifold removal is necessary to access the rear 3 coils and plugs.

The process is actually not as bad as it looks. I'd be happy if they were all this easy. Of course, I'd be happier if I didn't have to remove it at all, but hey, I'll take what I can get; Ford making something easy is a rarity.

That can't be good!

As you can see from the heavily-fouled condition of the spark plugs (above), this had been going on for quite a while. Seeing this, we readied the customer for the possibility that he had actually injured the motor, or at the very least, the rear catalytic converter, by continuing to drive it with the dead coils.

Here's where it gets interesting: as part of the diagnostics, prior to removing the upper intake, I'd already checked to see if our two dead coils were being triggered by the PCM (powertrain control module) - you can see it in the second picture; it's the box in the firewall with the three square plastic connectors on it. It wasn't firing them, though that could have been because the circuits or coils themselves were bad, so the PCM was protecting itself. Substituting a noid light (a circuit tester) eliminates that, and it revealed that the PCM simply wasn't triggering them, so the computer itself was bad.

While it's easy to replace - two bolts, three plugs! - a PCM for this vehicle is around $1000, and it then has to be programmed, which is another roughly $150. Ford has a bulletin that states that it will not warranty the new PCM unless all six coils are replaced. Apparently the coils kill the PCM - I've never heard of that happening before. Normally the internal circuitry in a PCM is robust enough that it will tolerate all kinds of punishment. A quick Google search suggested that this is not all that unusual in these vehicles. Who knew?

As it turns out, there's a firm in Toronto that will repair the PCM for a few hundred dollars, replacing the burnt-out coil drivers on the circuit board. This also negates the need for programming, since the computer is already programmed, and that part of it is OK. You just have to ship it out and wait a week or so for it to come back. In this case, time saves money.

********************

Six new plugs and six new coils, ready to go... (Note Ford's unusual cylinder numbering system)

This repair worked out. Six plugs, six coils, and a repaired PCM later, this Escape ran fine, and it appears - in the sort term at least - that both the engine and the catalytic survived their ordeal.

Credit Where Credit is Due

2010 Acura MDX

It might seem at times as if I'm unduly harsh on the automakers, constantly pointing out their shortcomings, oversights, and failures. Perhaps, though I'm equally happy to call attention to positive attributes when they present themselves.

To that end, allow me to introduce the 2010 Acura MDX seen above. Built on Honda's large utility platform (shared by the Acura ZDX, Honda Pilot, Honda Ridgeline, and Honda Odyssey minivan), this particular "YD2" version was produced for the 2007 to 2013 model years, and I'd expect the earlier and current versions to be similar.

It's not that these are perfect - another customer of mine had a 2008 model that needed all 4 of its fancy magneto-rheological shocks/struts replaced (leaking/failed) - a costly enough proposition on its own that it got traded in, rather than tackle that and some other upcoming maintenance/repairs.

What deserves mention in the MDX is ease of service of the driveline's fluids.

Fluid changes are a regular maintenance item, regardless of whether your vehicle's literature suggests that the transmission is "sealed for life" and the intervals for the differential and transfer case are either not provided at all or in the 100,000+ km range. Look closer at the severe service schedule for a more realistic view.

In some vehicles, fluid changes are a major pain. Yes, domestic automakers, I'm looking at you. Dropping a fluid-filled pan counts as a major pain - it's extremely rare for there to be a drain bolt, let alone one that's not completely seized in place and/or equipped with a fastener whose head is made of a material only marginally more robust than sun-softened butter. It's a fantastic opportunity to bask in the joy of spreading used transmission fluid all over the floor and - often as not - yourself while trying to balance a shallow, fluid-filled pan as you undo the last one or two fasteners and lower it into the drain bucket.

2001 Chevrolet Impala (3.8) engine bay from below - a typical domestic setup. That silver pan holds about 4 litres of fluid - think you can undo and lower that without spilling it?

In every Honda product I've ever seen (not counting the US-only Passport, which was a rebadged Isuzu Rodeo; I worked on one once), automatic transmission fluid is drained by undoing a single drain bolt.

The MDX's automatic transmission fluid drain bolt...

In most recent Hondas, the head of this bolt even incorporates a 3/8" square drive that any standard ratchet or extension fits into. Visually different from the other fasteners, there's no mistaking its purpose.

...in action.

If there's criticism to be leveled here, it's that some fluid ends up on the crossmember that runs below the transmission. I can live with that. However there's no way to change the filter (an internal screen), which isn't ideal, nor is the fact that only about 3-3.5 litres of the approximately 10 litres of fluid this thing holds get changed this way. Short of disconnecting a cooler line and using a fluid exchange machine, you won't get all of the fluid out of any conventional automatic during a service, so it will have to suffice.

Where Honda cements its victory here is in how the fluid gets replenished. Others require you to refill through the dipstick - a sometimes tedious process that's only better than the alternative of no dipstick. In older Hyundai/Kia automatics, you've got to add the fluid s-l-o-w-l-y or it burps back out the dipstick. Honda's solution in this application?

Acura MDX automatic transmission fill bolt.

How about a nice big top-mounted bolt marked "ATF"? A long funnel fits in beautifully, and with a large hole, it'll take fluid as fast as you can pour it in. Access could be slightly easier, but in the grand scheme of things, this is heaven. I will concede that the actual dipstick, which is mounted low down on the front, could be a bit easier to reach.

That's not where the thoughtfulness ends, though. There's still a transfer unit (splits power from the transmission and sends it rearward) and a rear differential, which on the MDX, also contains the clutches that control rear torque bias and SH-AWD power application.

Acura MDX Power Transfer Unit - see the drain and fill plugs?

These power take-off units normally don't contain very much fluid, so what fluid is there leads a harsh life. In the 1st-generation Nissan Murano, they're also known to leak, followed shortly by failure. Unfortunately, Nissan has chosen to make it terribly awkward to check, let alone fill, the transfer unit. They could stand to learn from Honda in this instance. Honda's drain and fill are both nice and obvious and accessible. The required fluid type (hypoid gear oil) is even cast into the housing next to the fill bolt. Nice!

How about the rear differential?

Acura MDX rear differential. More of the same. See the wiring for the clutch pack actuators?

Just what you'd expect, if you were working your way back from doing the other two services. A clearly marked fill bolt ("ATF"), and an obvious drain bolt. Access is trickier here because the rear crossmember and spare tire are right behind the diff, and the floor above makes the use of a funnel impossible, but there is a nice window cut into the crossmember immediately behind the fill plug, so a suction gun or the pressurized fill device of your choosing can get a clean, straight shot into the hole to refill it.

I have to ask myself, how much does it add in cost to cast lettering into the housings, or punch an extra opening into the rear crossmember to facilitate servicing? Probably nothing, or close to nothing. As for designing these components and those around them to make them accessible, how much extra would that cost? As a consumer, the time it takes to do these maintenance procedures does cost you. Would you pay an extra $100 or even an extra $500 up front if you knew that down the road you'd get that and more back in reduced labour? At least when it comes to these items, Honda apparently thinks you would. Good on 'em. Credit where credit is due.

Jackass Award - Canadian Tire

Canadian Tire is a Canadian icon

Oh Canadian Tire. You are a Canadian Institution, an Icon of Canadiana, a part of the psyche of the vast majority of this country's people. Perhaps that is why I feel so betrayed by some of your corporate decisions, as of late.

No, It's not incorporating Mark's Work Wearhouse into your retail space. That actually makes some sense, though I don't naturally tend to think of my local CTC store when I need clothing (did buy a nice winter coat for work there, though!).

It's not even the fact that you lock all of the hand tools away in display cases, behind layered racks where I can't actually see or browse what you have, or that you recently did away with the little call buttons at the end of some aisles that (potentially) might summon one of your employees - who seem to be oddly hard to find at the times when you'd really like one - no, it's not even that.

Hmm. I wonder what's behind the first layer of rack?

It's your tools. Much as is the case with Sears in the United States (yet oddly, not so much here - likely due to your successes on this side of the border), Canadian Tire has long been known by handyman and homeowner alike as a source for decent quality tools. While you've often offered cheaper, lower quality tools (and that's fine; they have their place), you've provided Canadians with your Mastercraft brand of tools for decades, backing them up with the reassurance of a lifetime warranty. Okay, things got a bit confusing a while back when you brought out a "Professional" line of Mastercraft sockets and hand tools (their inferred better quality suggested non-Professional were junk, yet they had the same warranty), however we adapted and carried on. Then you changed them to "Maximum", just to increase our confusion. Does that make the other Mastercraft tools Minimum? I digress.

You'd best believe that warranty sells tools.

While some might joke about "Crappy Tire" tools, I've been quite comfortably making a living fixing cars for nearly 20 years using Mastercraft tools.

Mostly Mastercraft...

...as are these. In a Mastercraft toolbox.

When I got started in the auto repair business, apprentices were not given any kind of tax breaks or incentives for tools as they are now, putting an extra crimp in my budget, so I bought my basics at Canadian Tire - right down to the 3 piece toolbox they're still stored in (and overflowing out of). Yes, I did spend just over $3000 on Snap-on tools at that time as well, which resulted in a disappointingly small pile, but the majority of my hand tools, both at home - where I have a less complete, redundant set - and at work, bear the Mastercraft name. There have been lots more added in the two decades that have followed. Imagine the Canadian Tire money I've earned... ... and the Brian Early money that Canadian Tire has received in exchange.

So what has me upset enough to want to hand you a Jackass Award? Well, CTC, my friend, you seem to have lost your way recently. First off - what's with the Stanley FatMax stuff? Why are you selling (and supporting, as it has a warranty too) a competing product to your home brand? It's not like Mastercraft and Mastercraft Maximum weren't already causing consumer confusion.

This whole diversification of your product range seems to be diluting the very essence of what defines your tools - and your brand as a whole. This is where my bugbear lies, and the reason I'm awarding you my booby prize. You no longer carry enough of the tools that you've sold, often in a set, but also individually, to be able to readily honour your warranty.

Used to be that I'd walk into my local Canadian Tire with my broken tool - usually a socket, as they tend to live a hard life - and I'd walk back out again with a replacement.

Look closely at the 9 o'clock position. See how the sides don't line up? This socket has split under load.

Not any more. My local store is the largest in the region. It did not have a replacement for this broken socket. Understandable if it was some obscure inverted torx or some other oddball; it is not.

Mastercraft for the win! Or not. (3/8" drive 14mm universal socket) I'm not even upset that it broke.

This is a 3/8" drive by 14 mm universal ("flex") socket. Second perhaps to Imperial-sized universals and straight sockets, about as common as you'll find in a mechanic's tool box. My local store had to special order one in, an easy enough process to initiate, but why? If I wanted to wait three days to a week to replace my socket, I could just buy a Snap-on or Mac or Matco, because their trucks come around roughly weekly, and will probably have several of these in stock. Sure, they cost more, but if I was in a real bind without it, I could call my tool rep and they'd likely swing by same-day to bail me out.

I'm not at all upset that it broke. Hell, I was tugging on it pretty earnestly when it finally rounded the corroded old fastener it was hanging on and split down the fluke. Any tool can fail, particularly when being worked hard and worked regularly. I recognize the cost advantage that Mastercraft tools have over those professional name-brand competitors, and I'm realistic in my expectations, even though I've been very pleasantly surprised over the years by just how well my Mastercraft stuff has lasted. In applications where my luck has not been so good, or where reliability or function is critical, I'll buy the pro-grade equipment (you can see it intermingled in my tool box drawer photos above).

What finally pushed me over the edge, compelling me to write a War and Peace-style Epic on Canadian Tire Corporation and Mastercraft tools was a twofold slight:

- Not being able to conveniently exchange what I felt was a common enough tool that it should be in stock, and not require ordering in. That is annoying, and negates one of the major benefits of owning your tools - ready replacement.

- The quality of the replacement tool, which is very clearly not of the same standards or even appearance of the tool that it replaced. (Don't even get me started on how Mastercraft's 3/8 drive "deep" sockets aren't as deep anymore.) The stamped-in size and Mastercraft logo are even upside-down, for Pete's sake! How it fares in use remains to be seen.

Ordered in, and does not appear to be of the same quality as the original. The stamped-in size and brand are even upside-down.

At some point in time a number of years ago, I purchased what I believed was a good quality socket. As expected, it served me well, and when it finally failed, I expected you to honour the lifetime warranty that you built in to the price of the tool. Now you're giving me what appears to be an inferior replacement. That is totally unacceptable, and discourages me from buying any other tools from you. If I wanted cheap tools of questionable quality that are still blessed with a warranty, there's another well-known Canadian business that would fit the bill. That's not what I want, and thus not what I bought. For that, Canadian Tire Corporation, I'm unhappy to present you with a Jackass Award.

The Good and Bad of Car to Car Communication

OnStar and electronic toll-road transponders - two ways in which you can already be tracked

There's been a lot of talk in the past few years about "Car to Car" communication as a way of reducing the frequency or even severity of multi-vehicle collisions. The US government has stated intentions to mandate Car to Car communication by 2017 (that is, to have a bill put into effect by 2017, not that cars would have to have this technology by 2017).

On the surface, this is a great idea, and many of the technologies involved already exist, even if they may require further refinement or expansion to suit this role. There's no doubt that the majority of the players in C2C (what I'll refer to "Car to Car" as from here on) have good intentions - car crashes still continue to claim more than 33,000 lives per year in the United States, though the numbers have been trending downwards since the early '80's, and are now at the lowest they've been since World War II. There are, of course, a far greater number of people that sustain life-changing injuries of some kind that these statistics don't cover. Canada's statistics are slightly lower overall than the US on a "per km traveled" and "per 100,000 persons" basis, but car crashes remain a very real concern.

So why am I not entirely pleased with C2C? Several reasons, actually.The premise of C2C is that vehicles would broadcast their relative position, heading, and speed over a proposed range of approximately 250-300 metres. In practice, with buildings and landforms potentially interfering, I'm going to suggest that the systems will end up having a greater output, say perhaps 500 metres. Heck, the 10 metre claimed range of my Bluetooth handsfree speakerphone is in reality easily double that in real life, as my phone often remains paired inside my steel-walled workplace as my car sits well away from the building out in the lot.

While I'm the last guy you'll see walking around with a tin-foil hat, I will acknowledge a certain amount of concern for the amount of radio waves we already saturate ourselves with. That is only a little, tiny part of my dislike for this continual broadcast; my concern is how easily this information could be used against you.

Proponents of C2C claim that vehicles will not be able to be individually identified by their C2C information, but I call bullshit. Just like your computer's IP Address can be used to track and even (not all that) roughly determine your location - how many pop-ups have you had that use your town's name? - it is unlikely that there won't be some kind of unique identifier or backdoor means of determining which vehicle is transmitting.

Further, if you are the only vehicle in a given area, it would not be difficult for the police to quite easily determine which vehicle it is that is broadcasting a speed in excess of the posted limit, even without the added bonus of heading and location information. Yes, folks, your car will tell on you, and it is not terribly difficult to imagine this data being used against you.

Similarly, much as is currently the case with electronic toll-road transponders, it would be dead easy for stationary nodes to monitor which vehicles pass by, and the ability for such information to be processed and stored already exists. Think about it; in amongst the several thousand cars on a given stretch of Ontario's Highway 407, most have entered and will exit the toll-road at different points, yet each will get billed for their usage, with the statements showing the exact times each way-point was crossed, a technology that has been in operation since 1997. 1997; when a 80 GB hard drive was huge, and the internet was dial-up. Think the technology has advanced since?

It should be pointed out that built-in telematics systems like GM's OnStar are already not only capable of tracking and transmitting speed, location, and specific vehicle ID (as well as lots of operational data), but actually already do do this, even if that information is said not to be used unless required for the service to function. It is both possible and legal, however, to disable these telematics systems, should the owner wish. Modern airbag modules also store a 5-10 second running snapshot of some vehicle parameters (brake application, speed, steering wheel angle, ESC/ABS operation, seat-belt use, etc.), stored in the event of airbag deployment - that "black-box" functionality can not be readily disabled without potentially affecting airbag operation. 

I don't consider myself a conspiracy theorist kind of guy, but do keep in mind that C2C is being pushed by the same government that has been steadily whittling away at its citizen's civil liberties in the name of security since 9/11. The connection isn't entirely implausible, nor is it totally unrealistic. Deliberate or not, it's very easy to see the system getting abused post-implementation, just as it's now possible to use cell phones for spying, a practice already acknowledged to occur. Where's that tin-foil hat?

Another concern for me is what I like to call "the ABS Effect". When vehicles with anti-lock brakes first came on the market, there was a pronounced increase in rear-end collisions with ABS-equipped models. This was not because they stopped so fast that non-ABS vehicles hit them (though there probably were more than a few of those instances too). It was because their drivers felt overly confident about the ability of their vehicles to stop faster, so they followed closer behind the car ahead, and took greater risks, having less concern for their stopping distances. The same thing happens with those who drive all-wheel drive models in inclement weather, and there's doubtless some degree of the ABS Effect occurring today with all post-2011 cars having mandatory stability control. Guaranteed that drivers will yet again put excessive trust in C2C, being even less aware of their situation than they are today. Never mind that for C2C to be truly effective, 100% of the vehicle fleet would have to have perfectly functioning C2C systems.

Which brings me to my final concern: implementation and serviceability. As a full-time working technician, I can tell you that despite ABS - a key component in stability control - being in wide use for more than 25 years, it still has durability issues when exposed to the real world environment of vibration and corrosion. Computers are hardly foolproof either - I just replaced the engine computer in a 2005 Buick that had only 25,000 km on it (did it die of boredom, perhaps?). Diagnosing and repairing the existing wireless components in today's cars, such as keyless entry, tire pressure monitoring (TPMS), and passive entry/starting, is already a challenge. (Let me tell you that TPMS, required in the US since 2008, has been a headache, as these systems are fragile and trouble-prone, and with no standardized implementation beyond transmitter frequencies, they vary in service ease between piece of cake and piece of, well, you get it.)

So when these C2C systems take a dirt nap, or worse yet, give erroneous information that results in a collision, who's going to be responsible? Will it be required by law that these systems be kept in working order as the vehicle ages or gets damaged? How will that be enforced? Will you legally be able to opt out? What are the legal implications if you're involved in a collision and your C2C system is determined to have been faulty? Will your insurance still cover you?

These are just a few of the questions that need to be addressed before C2C ever sees reality, and it's tough to imagine it getting rammed down the throats of US citizens, a nation that still does not have country-wide seat belt use laws (New Hampshire only requires their use by minors, for example).

There's little doubt in my mind that some form of C2C, just like fully autonomous vehicles, will eventually come into play. Likewise, I do think that there are very real benefits to such technologies. I believe it is still too soon however, and that there are still too many unanswered questions and unaddressed concerns for them to be mandated into use in the near future.