A Women’s Point of View: Remember When…..

by Colette Cooley, Cars for Keeps Office Manager

I was listening to a song on the radio while driving the other day that started me thinking about how life was when I was growing up. Sometimes it restores the soul to visit our childhood.

Remember when the only lock in your house was a hook and eye on the screen door? Or, when a cup of coffee cost 10 cents? Or, when everyone paid their bills with cash? Remember Roy Rogers, Gene Autrey and Hopalong Cassidy? Do you remember what life was like before television, and then TV came along and a little puppet called Howdy Dowdy had everyone enthralled? How about all those summers we endured without air conditioning? And, living a full life, somehow, without computers.

Little did we know that having to learn how to type would become such a necessity in all our lives. Remember Superman comic books, fresh farm grown food on the table every night and being called home for the night by a yell or a whistle? Or, having only one phone in the house and pulling it into the closet for a private conversation with your friends? Remember having to actually do hard work for that 25 cent a week allowance? A penny from the Tooth Fairy? Swimming in a lake with fish, ducks and an occasional snake? Newspapers without inserts?

Remember being able to change the oil and doing repairs on your car yourself?

For most of us those days are long gone and we have wonderful places like Cars For Keeps to keep our cars running smoothly. Stop in for a Pit Stop Inspection for free, just like service stations used to do for you way back when service was still important.

What is your favorite modern convenience?

Tack-It.com: A Friendlier Craigslist

by Dennis Sweet, Cars for Keeps Customer Service Manager

I know that many of our readers have been following our blog for a while and I hope you have found it helpful. Today I want to talk about a new local startup website, Tack-It.com.

Tack-It.com is a locally-owned classifieds website aimed at helping local community members connect with one another. Local business owners, service providers and every day folk looking to sell household items can post their products or services, which are listed according to product category and zip code. While Tack-It works somewhat similar to the popular classifieds website, Craigslist.com, it's geared more towards family-friendly use (in other words, without all the spam). Tack-It.com listings are carefully monitored to avoid abuse by its users, creating a clean, friendly environment for locals and community businesses to network.


Additionally, Tack-It.com partners with local business sponsors - like Cars for Keeps. We've teamed up with this local classifieds website ourselves as a local sponsor, and would appreciate your help in supporting this new local venture. After all, supporting local businesses helps to support local economy!

Stop on by Tack-It.com to see who's selling what - or to sell something yourself. Listings are 100% free.

You can visit both Tack-It.com and Cars for Keeps on Facebook as well. Click here to see Tack-It's Facebook page, and here to visit our Facebook page.

Thanks for your help supporting our Grand Haven economy!

Your friendly neighborhood Service Manager,

Dennis

A Women’s Point of View: Tips For Organizing Your Car Part II

by Colette Cooley, Cars for Keeps Office Manager

In Part I we looked at the car’s ceiling and seats using adhesive Velcro. Let's venture into the rest of the car to see how Velcro can be useful in other ways.

For owners of vans, you have this delicious space between the two front seats. I've found that it's the perfect place for those plastic, stackable drawers that can face either toward the front or the back seat. Measure carefully, allowing for the seat belts and the armrests. Make sure the bottom is flat so the Velcro will stick well to the floor. For all cars that have trunks; soft-sided suitcases, baskets, car organization carriers and even toolboxes are great.

To keep them from sliding every time you turn a corner, slap on the ole Velcro and they will stay nicely in place and not roll around like bowling pins. Make sure they have flat bottoms without feet or rollers. Stick some Velcro onto you sunglasses case and stick it to the ceiling between the sunvisors.

Need more hooks? Buy those self-sticking hooks that you can remove by pulling down on the tape and attach to the smooth surfaces of the car for grocery bags, purses, the kids backpacks and other assorted things with handles to keep them in place when turning corners. Do not attach these hooks to leather, it will tear with use. For those small items like paper clips, change, stamps, cell phone headset, etc., use the ashtray. For those cupholders that have the rubber lining that keeps the cup in place are great, but the rubber comes out with the cup, a drop or two of Gorilla Glue will keep the rubber in the cupholder. And every car needs one of those pads you set on the dash to hold cell phones, change, pens, etc.

Remember, never, ever stick the sticky side of Velcro onto the car. It will ruin the finish. Always put the sticky side on the storage item.

Stop by Cars For Keeps anytime and we will help brainstorm any car problem you may have, large or small.

Safe driving!

Death of the Manual Transmission

Like the old saying goes, “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” My 16 year old son is a newly licensed driver. He did very well learning how to drive with an automatic transmission. Now it’s time for him to learn the manual on my Scion TC. As he struggles with the coordinated ballet of two feet, three pedals and the fine art of stalling, his frustration seems to ask, “Why?” He may have a point. It appears that it’s the beginning of the end for the good ole manual transmission.

Just about every car that I’ve owned has had a manual, except when unavailable (Ford Thunderbird and Toyota RAV4), and when I made the wrong decision as I did with my Honda Accord (its automatic began to fail after only seven years and 50,000 miles).
I guess I’ve taken driving a manual transmission for granted. I don’t remember any big deal in learning how to shift. My father’s VW Bug was four-on-the-floor. After a few tries to get used to the clutch, I just got in and drove. I’ve been driving ever since.

I have always preferred a manual. It’s fun to have total control over the car, to coordinate the transmission with the vehicle’s performance, to regulate the engine’s torque to whatever driving challenge lies ahead. It feels good to be actively involved in the car’s handling, in complete control of everything the vehicle is doing. On a snowy, slippery day, I feel safe as I decide when it’s time to change gears. And, when you’re engrossed with shifting, there’s no temptation to multi-task with cell phones or any other distractions.

Automatics are more prone to failure, and they cost a lot for repairs. A transmission job for a manual can run $1200-$1500, while one for an automatic is around $3000. Also, I like saving the $1,000 premium that an automatic adds to a car’s purchase price, along with the manual’s daily fuel savings. Up until now, a stick shift has generally saved two or three miles per gallon in fuel economy. Finally, if you are stuck with a dead battery, you can always push a car to get started with a manual.

But all good things must come to an end. As recent as 1980, 35% of all cars sold had a standard transmission. Now as little as 6% of all sales are stick shifts, and that amount seems to be steadily decreasing. 2008 was the last year that a manual could be purchased on any full sized truck, while Toyota says that now only 2% of the cars they sell are manuals. If there is so little demand for a standard transmissions, manufacturers will phase manuals out altogether, to save production costs, as well as pocket the increased purchase price that comes with an automatic. It appears that the fuel savings is no longer a benefit too. Today’s computerized automatics actually come in with better mileage numbers than the manuals. The computer now knows the ideal time to shift up and down, optimizing mileage.

It appears that, other than high-end paddle shifters and various forms of Manumatic/Tiptronic transmissions, the manual’s days are numbered. My son is doing much better with his learning how to shift. It’s a good thing because its time is limited. The manual transmission is soon to go the way of carburetors and crank windows; a piece of automotive history that will only be found in auto museums and in our memories. Down shift while you can, and enjoy the ride.

MaineAutoMall.com Auto Blog

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A Woman's Point of View: Tips for Organizing Your Car, Part I

by Colette Cooley, Cars for Keeps Office Manager

The magic word here is Velcro. The black Velcro with the sticky side and the grabbing side, and the wide width. This is how to organize your car for yourself and your family. For the driver to have everything within reach. The ceiling of your car is this soft felt material that works like the smooth side of Velcro. It is also an untapped space to use for storage.

Flat CD storage holders can be found at Walmart, Target, etc. They hold 8 to 12 CD’s. Put the sticky side of the Velcro on the CD holder and slap it onto the ceiling of your car. I have mine over the sunvisor. You can put some over the back seat area for the kids, too.

Ceiling Velcro also makes it easy to store a flat document holder in which to keep you car registration, insurance papers, etc. directly over your head. Now you won't have to rummage through the glove compartment, which is free to hold heavy or bulky items such as an umbrella, trouble light/seatbelt cutter and windshield glass breaker. Use another flat document holder for a pen, a pad of Post-A-Notes, letters to be mailed, bank deposit slips or grocery lists.

Get a trash bag with Velcro straps and wrap around the base of the front seat headrest to hold things like kids games, snacks, personal DVD players, MP3 players, books or even trash. It's is easily accessible for anyone sitting in the back seats.

I have many more suggestions on how to organize your car, so this will be a two part blog - look for Tips for Organizing Your Car Part II next Friday.

A word of caution: always put the sticky side of the Velcro onto the storage item. Never, Ever put the sticky side onto the material of the car. It will pull the material away from the cars ceiling and tear it every time you get into the storage item.

To be continued…..

The Porsches come out in the spring

Meet Dave Tassinari, my neighbor here on Page Boulevard.



Seven years ago we sold Dave a tired old 928. "I'm going to take it apart and build a race car," he said. This is the result . ..




As you can see, he's put a huge amount of work into this project, and the results speak for themselves.





This weekend Dave is off to his first track event. Good luck out there!

Cars for Keeps Mechanics: Men Can Multitask Too!

by Colette, Cars for Keeps Office Manager

Any woman, whether she works outside the home or not, is an expert at multi-tasking. We wear many hats every day. Wife, mommy, housekeeper, cleaning lady, laundress, chauffer, appointment setter/keeper, gardner, cook, nurse, lover, psychiatrist, teacher, disciplinarian and on and on. Add to that if we work outside the home.

Yes, we are experts at multi-tasking and we take it all in stride. One pat on the back coming up. But, to give the men their due, they are pretty good at it too. As a woman working at Cars For Keeps, I have observed the men I work with multi-tasking every day. For two days a while back, I watched Michael, our head mechanic, work on four cars at the same time. We were short a mechanic and everyone pitched in to keep everything running smoothly and on time. Michael was going from one car to the next car to the next car as the parts came in. We seriously considered putting him in skates. He never complained and kept his humor going, but by the end of those couple of days, he was dragging.

Our service manager, Dennis, multi-tasks 11 hours a day, five days a week. He manages the mechanics' time, helps them solve technical problems, finds and purchases the best parts at the best price for the job, deals with vendors, confers at management and marketing meetings, helps every customer meet their needs, makes technical, financial and time management decisions almost every minute, answers phone calls, makes phone calls, supervises care of the grounds around the building, handles all emergencies with efficiency, keeps up with computer information every company runs on and sometimes he even eats lunch. In the four years that I have worked with Dennis I have never seen him “lose his cool”.

So here are gold stars and fireworks and ‘good job’ kudos for all the men who work faithfully, nobly and steadfastly in their jobs. It is heroic!