Failure is not an option - but it's the most likely outcome

About 2 weeks ago the radiator started leaking.  Luckily I'm not losing a ton of coolant right now because the leak is very small and at the top of the radiator.  I've been getting by topping off the coolant reservoir every day or 2 I drive (I check each time I drive, but sometimes don't need to top it off).  I've also poured in various brands of stop leak but with no success.

So realistically, it doesn't appear the leak will stop any time soon.  I can continue to add coolant when needed (I've successfully driven the car 3 or 4 times at highway speed for between 60 and 100 miles without trouble - also around town and to work and back).  But all it takes is one time forgetting to top it off and the car is toast.  Or even worse, the leak could grow - causing the car to toast.  

I wish there was more to post right now, but there's not.  There will however be an epic final journey post whenever that happens.

Under 6,000 miles to go.

Pin hole radiator leak

Pin hole radiator leak, a photo by bendertj on Flickr.

Leak is back

Radiator Update

Friday evening I live-blogged a photo showing a radiator leak.  At the time I was about 100 miles from home and worried first and foremost that I wasn't going to make it home to let our dog out.  Luckily a trip to wal-mart for some coolant and that radiator seal junk allowed my wife and myself to limp home, apparently slowing but not stopping the leak. Over the weekend I put close to another 150 miles on the odo and it appears at the moment that the leak has stopped.

This is the kind of stuff that worries me.  With around 6,000 miles left to 300K I'm not spending money on maintenance anymore.  If the radiator leak was large enough (it appears to be pin-hole size) that would be a wrap on the car.  but for the time being, i'll keep some extra coolant in the trunk and check the level daily to make sure nothing bad happens.

Hopefully this was just a bump in the road and not a sign of more serious problems.

100 miles from home and find a radiator leak

100 miles from home and find a radiator leak, a photo by bendertj on Flickr.

Not good. Radiator leak

Predicting the Big Day

Schwalbe Fat Frank 29 x 2.0, a photo by bendertj on Flickr.

Predicting when the 300,000 mile roll-over will happen, and determining when to begin documenting the final miles has turned out to be somewhat challenging. Over on the right-hand side of the blog I've added a widget that shows real-time mileage and an estimated roll-over date that are calculated based on daily mileage updates I add manually to a Google Spreadsheet.

The roll-over date is based on a linear growth model that takes the average miles per day traveled and calculates out how many days remain until the car reaches 300k. Right now it's showing a targeted roll-over date of March 2013. On top of having a small sample size I've been bicycle commuting to work more frequently and my wife and I are driving her car more on the weekend because we want to delay the inevitable replacement of this vehicle as much as possible. So posting will be sparse until later this fall.

In the meantime, here's a picture of one of my 2 bicycles. It's a Surly CrossCheck purchased back in 2008. It has served me well in the past for commuting to work, lite single track duty, touring, and most recently cyclocross racing. I'm currently building it up as a city bike and backup / nice weather commuter with Schwalbe Fat Frank balloon tires and platform pedals. My primary bike, a Surly Long Haul Trucker, will probably be featured in another post in the future.

Bike commuting is great. It eliminates the greatest expense to driving a car - gasoline. Although when you take gasoline out of the equation, I've probably spent more money on bicycle tires alone in the past 5 years than I have on car maintenance.

Al Bundy's 1,000,000 Mile Dodge and other 'What-Ifs?'

Remember the episode of 'Married with Children' where Al's Dodge is about to roll over 1,000,000 miles and Dodge tells him that if they can film the monumental event they'll reward him with a brand new Dodge Viper?  Al drives the car up and down the street until the odometer is 999,999.9 and backs it into his garage so that the next morning he can roll it out before the cameras, roll-over a million miles and collect his Viper.  However in an effort to ensure the car isn't tampered with overnight he sleeps in the driver's seat and inadvertently shifts the car into neutral while sleeping and awakes to an odometer that reads 1,000,000.  Typical Al Bundy luck.

I know that 300,000 miles isn't a huge big deal.  I know about the guy with the 3 million mile Volvo (didn't Volvo give him a new Volvo when he hit 1,000,000 miles and he subsequently drove that car over 1,000,000 miles?  Rumors.) But 300,000 is a big deal to me.  Unlike the Volvo guy, or most of the  people on the web who have crazy  high-mileage stories, I'm not a salesman nor a courier and I don't drive to make a living.  Does that make this Accord more pious?  No, just different.  And to be honest, I don't think I'll ever have the opportunity to do this again.  Which is why I'm making a big deal out of it now.

Back to Al Bundy and his paranoia.  Just like Al, I'm equally excited about hitting 300,000 miles and realize that despite having a clean driving record there are a few things that could happen over the coming months that would end this goal prematurely:  The car could be in an accident or endure a level of damage or repair that would be unrealistic to overcome from a financial standpoint - these are what I'm worried about most.  Because to be honest, if I weren't striving to hit the 300,000 mark this car would've been donated to Goodwill a long time ago.

The car makes noises and things are starting to fall apart.  The front right brake rotor is warped and the caliper seized.  The tires are at the end of their lifespan.  There's a fuel injector problem where when I start the car and put it into drive it doesn't respond to the accelerator at all without pumping the pedal numerous times.  Most of the cabin lights have burned out.  Knobs have fallen off.  I'm limping towards the finish line and the closer we get the more it's going to hurt if something fails.  I'm willing to put a little bit of money into the car to get there, but not a significant amount.

I can relate to how Al felt in that episode.  It's a paradox to own a car that you both wish would be stolen so you can move onto something better, but you'd be absolutely crushed if it actually happened.

On a side note, I'm posting current mileages on the right-hand side of this blog page direct from my twitter account.  I'm also using a linear growth model to predict when I'll turn over 300,000 miles.  Currently predicted to occur in December of this year.

Why I like High-Mileage Vehicles

'79 Coupe de Ville, a photo by bendertj on Flickr.

In my very first post I told a story about how my dad got rid of a car that despite having close to 200,000 miles on the odometer drove better than our much newer Dodge. My mom was convinced that hitting that 200k figure meant automatic doom.  I never believed it, and every car I've owned since has in one way or another striven to prove that arbitrary mileage figures mean less than good car maintenance.

Every car I've owned as an adult has had more than 180,000 miles on the odometer when I finally got rid of it.  I even went so far as to buy a 1979 Cadillac Coupe deVille (pictured above) that had 190,000 miles on the clock.  I also owned a Mazda Protege that had 180,000 on the clock when I got rid of it.  None of these cars yet (including my current Accord) has stranded me.

I like to buy cars really cheap.  High-mileage cars accomplish that fairly easily and if you can find one with a great service record there's a lot of value that can be had.  But in a future post I'll discuss why I'm not attempting 400,000 miles in my Accord.