Dear Tom and Ray: I live in Vermont, and I have two possible ways to go to work. The first way is what people who don’t live in Vermont would call “quaint,” but what I would call “lousy.” The road winds through the hills and is dirt for part of the way. In mud season, it turns into a bog. It’s rutted and has washboards in places. During winter, it’s peppered with frost heaves. The other way is all highway driving.
Seems like a no-brainer, right? The problem is that the “quaint” way is 9 miles shorter each way. In the course of a year, that adds up to something close to 5,000 fewer miles. Which route should I choose: The dirt road that saves miles while beating up my car, or the highway that treats my car well but racks up thousands of extra miles a year?
– Greg
Tom: Take the advice of Bobby Troup, Greg. He was the former piano player for the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, who wrote about Route 66: “Travel my way, take the highway, that’s the best.”
Ray: I thought Nat King Cole did “Route 66.”
Tom: He recorded it first. But Troup wrote the lyrics.
Ray: Well, that’s the right advice, Greg. Even though you’ll put more miles on the car by taking the longer highway route, you’ll spend less on maintenance and repairs over the car’s life.
Tom: Smooth highway driving is easier on everything: tires, shocks, springs, brakes and the entire front end.
Ray: So stick to the highway, Greg. Five thousand extra highway miles a year is far less damaging than bouncing over the back roads every day.
…
Dear Tom and Ray: My wife’s butt is SO HOT … and it was caused by a 2003 Ford Focus Wagon’s “seat warmers”! The seat warmers burned the seat material and my wife’s new winter coat! I wrote Ford’s Consumer Affairs department to warn them of a serious burn/fire hazard. All I got back was some goofy letter about being unable to offer any assistance about our claim. We didn’t submit a claim! We just wanted Ford to look into this safety issue so that nobody gets hurt! We filed a report with the NTSB. Anyplace else we should contact?
– Bill
Tom: The place to go is NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. They’re the people who handle auto safety.
Ray: You can contact them at safercar.gov, or through 1-888-327-4236. You should get this fixed! You don’t want to create any actual griddle marks on anybody’s tuchus. Or start a fire.
Tom: Take the car to your dealer and ask him to investigate. There should be a resistor that limits the current the heating element is allowed to pull. That resistor, or the element itself, may be faulty.
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