Lilred's Rant of the Week-The new thing-a-ma-jig

[fabsroman]

Lordy, don't get me started on this one.

Except for front wheel and 4 wheel alignments and the replacement of tires, my cars have never been to a mechanic. I even bought the $150 computer to tell me what the engine code is when the check engine light comes on.

I check my tire pressure religiously because I know that low tire pressure causes increased tire wear and poor gas mileage. My first set of tires on my Taurus got 80,000 miles and I am on 55,000 miles with the second set so far and they still have plenty of tread. I got 29.3 mpg on the last tank of gas which is the best I have gotten to date.

There are 2 reasons for this tire pressure monitoring thing.The first is to help the poor Joe out that cannot check his own tire pressure. He would probably have to go to the dealer to get the tires inflated. This might also help the nation as a whole use less fossil fuel.

The second reason is to cause a do-it-yourselfer like me a headache in trying to figure out how to correct the computer issue. Recently, I heard that one car being made now has 73 different computers on board. Now, I heard this from somebody and would guess that it was actually 73 computer sensors instead, but even so, that is a lot.