How To Get Your Vehicle Ready For A Trip On The Road

If you're going on a trip and driving your vehicle, keep in mind there are some preliminary things that should be done, especially if you're driving several hundreds of miles. This will help you to escape the problems that arise if you don't get your vehicle checked out beforehand.

Take your vehicle to your mechanic to find out what may need to be done. You should start this at least a month to two months prior to your trip. This is when any major repairs should be taken care of. Having this done a month or two before time gives you a chance to correct any additional issues related to the repair(s).

Make sure your tires are inflated properly and that they have enough pressure. Your tires can blow out while you're driving if they don't have enough pressure in them. Checking the tire treads is important. This is another way your tires can experience a blowout.

The way to check this is to put a penny between the tire's grooves. On the penny, the head of Abraham Lincoln should be pointing downward. If the space above Lincoln's head is visible or you can see the words "In God We Trust", new tires are needed. Your spare tire should be inflated and the tools should be available in the event you'll need to use it.

The vehicle's manual should be in the glove compartment. You will need that in the event the vehicle experiences trouble on the road. If you don't have one, check the manufacturer's website to see if they have one in PDF format. With technology as it is, it wouldn't be surprising if they did. At least you wouldn't have to wait weeks to get a replacement.

Any minor maintenance such as oil changes can be done a week prior to your trip. You should also check your tires again for pressure and tread efficiency. If there are any abnormalities that weren't there before, take it to your mechanic for a look.

You should have a clean air filter in your vehicles. If it's not clean, it will affect your vehicle's mileage and suck up gas. This means you will have to stop for gas more often for your vehicle. You will definitely need to change the filter if it's been in the vehicle over 12,000 miles.

Remove any items from your vehicle that you won't need for the trip. This will give more room to the items that you will need or are planning to take. You should have a clean vehicle before you leave. Take an hour or two to clean and vacuum the inside.

Have a map or if you have a newer vehicle, consider getting a GPS (Global Positioning System). This will help you get to your destination without getting lost. It would be advantageous for you to fill up the tank before you leave. When you get on the road, nine times out of ten, you will pay more for gas outside of your area.

Make sure that you have packed everything you need for your trip. More importantly, make sure you have your toiletries and prescribed medicines. Check through your suitcases and garment bags. It's not good to overload your vehicle with a lot of stuff.

Doing all these things will help you have an enjoyable trip.

Say bonjour to the new Sandero

Updated on: 06/06/08

New pictures: 2009 Dacia Sandero SUV via Auto.cz

The Sandero has been launched in Brazil as a Renault but when the European counterpart arrives, don't expect the same name treatment.

Although, the Sandero is set for launch in 2009, Dacia is hot on its heels, testing it thoroughly in Southern Italy and Romania. Compared to the Brazilian Sandero, the European model will have a revised radiator grille.

Better specc'ed grades could have colour coded bumpers and door mirrors, electrically adjustable/heated door mirrors, front electric windows, height adjustable drivers seat, remote central door locking etc although, lower grades will be available for the UK market.

The Sandero will measure at four-metres and should be available at £6,500, which is the same price tag as an entry-level KIA Picanto.

The Sandero is based on the same BO platform and mechanicals that are found in the Logan saloon, estate and van. Its official launch will be at next month’s Geneva motor show but it won’t go on sale in the UK until early 2009.

There will also be a seven-seat version of the estate car which will be available to Europeans but isn't likely to come to the UK, however, the Logan estate could join our range later on in 2009.

When the new variants appear, they will be sold through Renault’s strong 200 dealer network with most showrooms having their own “Dacia” section.

A hatchback and estate aren't the only variants in the pipeline, expect to see a pseudo "SUV" looking Sandero hatchback and a sedan, which are all due to launch in 2009.

Related links:

Renault Sandero video
Renault Sandero launches in Brazil
New Car: 2008 Renault Sandero

SsangYong cuts prices across the range (UK)

The Korean car maker, SsangYong announced that it will chop prices across its range in the UK.

SsangYong was thinking about pulling out of the UK market due to poor sales. Only 1,500 cars were sold last year with the Rexton II be the most popular but even this even suffered poor sales itself due to high tax band and emissions.

The new Kyron will start from £14,995, this being front wheel drive which is saving you £3000 from the previous price tag of £17,995. This undercuts the Hyundai Tucson, Honda CR-V and KIA Sportage. The Rexton II SUV sheds £2,600, with a sticker price of £19,995. Powering it is a 2.7 litre diesel engine and lets not forget, it is almost as big as the Land Rover Discovery/LR3, but the Rodius doesn't get a price cut.

These price reductions are due to the brand being bought and distributed by Koelliker UK and re-launching.

Audi TT-S pricing announced (UK)

Audi UK has announced prices for the TT-S roadster and coupé.

The coupé will sell for £33,380 while the roadster will start at at £35,380 both OTR.

TT-S is a new name on the market, coming in, without a clear direct rival as far as its two German counterparts are concerned. At introduction, it will sport the same overworked 2.0-litre VW company mill, which for this application will produce 200kW and torque of 350Nm. The 0 – 100km/h time should be just 5.4 seconds for the 6-speed manual coupé and 5.6 seconds for the roadster.

Buyers who choose the dual-clutch S-tronic will go 0.2 seconds quicker off the line. A new damping system called Audi magnetic ride will help to change the driving character of the car by varying suspension for different road surfaces and situations.

LED daytime running lights also feature and standard 18-inches alloys, though an upgrade to 19-inch 5-spokers is available at £750.

Car Parts: Backbone of Any Car

One of the vehicles that are hugely liked world over is cars. Perfect utility machines, they contribute handsomely and eradicate quite a few troubles from one's life. Indeed, there cannot be two thoughts about the fact that cars indeed are a multi-utility phenomenon. Not only does it eradicates one's commuting troubles but also adds handsomely to one's status symbol as well. It is extremely surprising and ironical, therefore, that people don't give as much attention to car parts or car accessory that they should be giving. No wonder then that most of the people start complaining about the bad performance of their cars almost as soon as they purchase them.

A few examples would explain the whole point pretty easily. Take the case of car mats. In spite of the fact that they provide extremely important service to the cars yet they are not taken that seriously by people. Imagine a part of the car that saves it from dust and rain and provides cushion to feet thereby making the journey comfortable is not given its rightful due. Nothing can be as baffling!

Similar is the case with spare parts. Such integral car parts but again not given as much attention as is their right. There are times on several occasions when you cannot get the proper silencer or combustion pipes etc. and have to wait for days for them to arrive to get the short coming fixed. Had a careful attention been given to these essential components then situation would not have deteriorated that much.

These points should communicate the point pretty nicely that a careful observation to car accessories or car parts while purchasing cars would go a long way in helping people combat such critical times. All that you need to do is to pay slight attention to these essential components to give that edge to your car.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/cars-articles/car-parts-backbone-of-any-car-326130.html

Top Advantages to Buying Car Insurance Online

It is very important to research all of the many car insurance companies available to make sure that you get the best rates and best coverage. Car insurance is critical to keeping you and your family protected against injuries and accidents. In fact, now you can buy car insurance online.

There are many independent websites that can assist you in choosing the right coverage at an affordable rate. By using one of these companies, you know that you will get unbiased results because they do not partner with specific companies.
There are quite of few great websites on the web that give the user a friendly visit. They offer features such as compared rates to other insurance companies that can help you make your decision based on the lowest rates. They also will allow you the feature to purchasing them online
Others, you can submit a claim online, and they have a program that can help you quickly repair the damaged vehicle. With this program, you will be driving your car again in no time. By choosing one of their mechanic shops, they can speed up the repair time.
There are so many different companies that you can use to buy car insurance online. By receiving free quotes from several of these companies, you can do some easy comparison shopping to choose the company that is right for you. Comparison shopping is critical to finding a good reliable company.

The most important thing for a driver is to be insured. By insuring yourself, you protect you, your financial health, and those family and friends that are riding with you.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/cars-articles/top-advantages-to-buying-car-insurance-online-321650.html

AFA's Ford Boycott Is Anti-Christian

A recent article I saw on Pajamas Media estimates that the ongoing American Family Association boycott of Ford is doing serious damage to Ford's sales. This is debatable. I propose that the boycott is actually anti-family.

The American Family Association is continuing to press its boycott against Ford, in an attempt to convince Ford to stop supporting homosexual community groups through its philanthropy, and to stop advertising to gay customers. The AFA chose Ford out of all of the automakers because at the beginning of the boycott, Ford was in financially the worst position. (I suspect that title may now actually belong to Chrysler, behind its private equity wall. )

The AFA's boycott is wrong, in my opinion. * First, on biblical grounds:

18:20 And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is
great, and because their sin is very grievous;

...

18:23 And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the
righteous with the wicked? 18:24 Peradventure there be fifty
righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the
place for the fifty righteous that are therein? 18:25 That be far
from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the
wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far
from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? 18:26 And
the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city,
then I will spare all the place for their sakes.

18:27 And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me
to speak unto the LORD, which am but dust and ashes: 18:28
Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou
destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, If I find there
forty and five, I will not destroy it.

18:29 And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there
shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for forty's
sake.

18:30 And he said unto him, Oh let not the LORD be angry, and I will
speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I
will not do it, if I find thirty there.

18:31 And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the
LORD: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I
will not destroy it for twenty's sake.

18:32 And he said, Oh let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak yet
but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I
will not destroy it for ten's sake.

--Genesis 18, Project Gutenberg King James Bible

Granted, the bible says that homosexuality is an "abomination". But God was willing to spare Sodom from destruction if there were even only 10 righteous men in the city, which had a population of thousands. This is an illustration of God's attribute of mercy--even though the Sodomites were sinners, he was convinced by Abraham not to mete out collective punishment.

Ford has about 283,000 employees. Quite a few of these (probably the majority of U.S. employees) are Christians. Is it right to potentially hurt so many, not to mention the dealers, suppliers, and others who benefit from Ford's business because Ford sends some money to homosexual causes?

I have no idea how much Ford has spent on gay marketing and donations. The largest gift AFA mentions was $250,000 that the Ford Fund donated to build a community center. But compare this to the $87,000,000 total that Ford spent on philanthropy in 2006. Of that, $13,000,000 alone was given to United Way of Michigan in 2006 (Source).

Ford's gay support is a drop in the bucket.

The AFA, in its zeal to fight its culture war against the gay movement, is willing to destroy the livelihood of tens of thousands of Christian employees, and eliminate millions of dollars of charitable giving to pro-family causes.

Even if the AFA is successful, it isn't clear what they will accomplish, other than expanding their own influence.

Here is a list of other companies that are listed as being very gay friendly (100% score), according to the Human Rights Campaign report of 2004:

Fortune Rank, Company
108 Aetna Inc.**
305 Agilent Technologies Inc.*
110 American Airlines (AMR Corp.)**
69 American Express Co.*
301 Apple Computer Inc.**
40 AT&T Corp.*
401 Avaya Inc.**
n/a Bausch & Lomb Inc.
78 Best Buy Co. Inc.*
452 Borders Group Inc.*
200 Capital One Financial Corp.
n/a Cargill Inc.
402 The Charles Schwab Corp.*
n/a ChoicePoint Inc.
174 Chubb Corp.*
100 Cisco Systems Inc.*
8 Citigroup Inc.*
430 Coors Brewing Co.*
31 Dell Inc.*
n/a Deutsche Bank
149 Eastman Kodak Co.**
n/a Faegre & Benson*
4 Ford Motor Co.*
74 The Goldman Sachs Group Inc.*
11 Hewlett-Packard Co.
9 IBM Corp.
53 Intel Corp.**
26 J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.**
274 Keyspan*
n/a Kimpton Hotels & Restaurant Group Inc.*
n/a Kraft Foods Inc.*
113 Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
422 Levi Strauss & Co.
243 Lucent Technologies Inc.**
36 MetLife Inc.
n/a Miller Brewing Co.*
n/a Mitchell Gold Co.
n/a Morrison & Foerster LLP
61 Motorola Inc.*
118 Nationwide*
322 NCR Corp.**
499 New York Times Co.*
184 Nike Inc.**
350 Owens Corning*
62 PepsiCo Inc.*
25 Pfizer Inc.*
179 PG&E Corp.
57 Prudential Financial Inc.
n/a Replacements Ltd.**
n/a SC Johnson & Son Inc.
n/a Southern California Edison Co.*
n/a UBS Financial Services Inc.*
49 Wells Fargo & Co.*
161 Whirlpool Corp.*
n/a Worldspan Technologies Inc.**
130 Xerox Corp.**

It's clear why Ford was chosen from this list--it's high profile, American, and in bad financial shape. If the AFA had chosen Dell, for example, their leverage would have been dramatically less.

Here is a list of other automakers from the 2008 HRC report:

Company, Score
Chrysler 100
General Motors 100
Subaru USA 85
Toyota USA 90
VW USA 100

In addition, gaywheels.com lists BMW, Mitzubishi, Nissan, and Mercedes as being "gay friendly".
Which means that the only major companies left that are not are Honda, and Hyundai/Kia. The AFA web site does not endorse Honda, Hyundai, or Kia, surprisingly.

Whether we agree or not, all major automakers have some level of support for the gay community

*I'm ambivalent on this issue personally. I think gays should be treated with dignity, but I don't support the official redefinition of marriage to include gay unions.