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Car Salespersons Are People Too

Brad Train

2003-10-01 11:56:00

: How does someone go about having special needs equipment installed on his or her existing car? Do you need to purchase a new car to accommodate such equipment, or can you order a new car with this equipment already installed straight from the factory?

ANSWER:  You shouldn't purchase or lease your car before you've consulted with a professional. Finding the appropriate match of vehicle and equipment is sometimes difficult. Customers should consider space limitations, vehicle use, family size and the type of equipment to be installed. A competent mobility equipment installer and a driver assessment professional can work together to assist you.    Get an evaluation from a certified driver assessment facility. Driver evaluation programs are certified by your state's Department of Motor Vehicles. Your state may require behind-the-wheel lessons before licensing you to operate the adapted vehicle. A complete driver assessment includes evaluation of sensory motor functions, cognitive processing, general driving knowledge and on-road performance driving a modified vehicle. The final report will provide driving and vehicle modification recommendations. Contact a rehabilitation center near you for more information.    You must contact your state driver's license agency to report any changes in your driving status. In most states, failure to report a change in driving status can put your driver's license in jeopardy. There are many physical conditions that can produce a potentially dangerous driving situation and affect your driver's license status. If you are unsure of these, contact your rehabilitation center for more information. When you report your condition to a driver's license agency, a medical review may be conducted, but, in many cases, driving privileges can be retained with minimal restrictions.    Choose a qualified equipment installer. Shop around and ask about qualifications, warranty, service practices and capabilities. Ask for a list of references. If you travel with a wheelchair, take it when you visit the installer. Also, ask whether the manufacturer supports the product with replacement parts and liability insurance. Your state rehabilitation services agency is a good source of information about equipment installers in your area.    Get the proper training in equipment use, care and maintenance. The equipment installer and/or driving evaluator should provide you with training in proper use, care and maintenance of your adaptive equipment and vehicle control system. In addition, you'll want to drive the vehicle under the supervision of a qualified driving instructor until you both feel comfortable with your skills.

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Car Salespersons Are People Too

Brad Train

2003-09-01 10:08:00

:   Should I buy my car at the end of my lease?  

ANSWER: Many people ask me they should buy their car at the end of their lease. Usually the end of lease purchase price, also known as the "residual value", is an early estimate for the actual market value of the car, based upon time of return. The answer to your question however, is sometimes it can be a good deal for the customer and other times, depending upon market conditions and the supply and demand of various things, it may not be. Currently there are a record number of 36-60 month leases that started in 2000 that are ending. Shoppers realize the buyout price is sometimes much more than the market value, and are giving their cars back to leasing companies instead of buying them. Combine this with the low APR financing on new cars, and heavy factory incentives, not too many are buying their leased car when they can buy new. This has made for a backlog (over supply) of used cars, thus values have depreciated much more than expected in 2001-2003. So, again, at times the answer might be yes, but in the present situation, it may be in the best interest of the customer to let the leased car go back and buy new, or look for other used car buys. Remember, every situation is different and if you need help with your decision, talk with the dealer that you're working with.

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Car Salespersons Are People Too

Brad Train

2003-08-01 11:28:00

: What are the major components of a tire?  What is the difference between bias ply and radial ply?  

ANSWER: The Bead, Filler, Sidewall and Plies form the Casing of a tire. The Bead is composed of a stranded cable of high-strength steel coated with rubber. It provides the strength needed to keep the tire on the rim under varied conditions. It also serves to handle the forces applied when mounting the tire on the rim. The Sidewall adds lateral stability for the tire with the help of the Filler. It also protects the underlying Plies while contributing to airtight integrity. Individual cords of fabric run from one Bead to the other to form a Ply. The arrangement of the Plies determines the tire type, i.e., bias or radial. The Plies are also coated with rubber to help them bond with other components and to seal-in the air.   A Belt is typically made of fabric and reinforces the area under the Tread. The Belt provides puncture resistance and helps the tire maintain its shape at high speeds, improving handling and ride comfort. The Tread provides contact with the pavement. It's made from a mixture of natural and synthetic rubbers for specific applications. Sport tires for example place an emphasis on traction over mileage. The tread pattern is designed to channel water away from the contact area.   All current tires are based on two basic types, bias-ply and radial-ply. In a bias-ply tire, the cords in a single ply run diagonally from the bead on one side of the tire to the bead on the other side. Orientations of the cords are reversed from one ply to the next so that cords crisscross each other. Under normal driving conditions, crisscrossed plies generate friction increasing tire temperature and tread wear. To improve tread life, a belt (red/white) is added between the plies and the tread. The belt also improves the tire ride and handling characteristics. In a radial-ply tire, the plies run from side-to-side (bead-to-bead) at 90 degrees. Because the plies do not crisscross each other, radial-ply tires generate less friction and a lower rolling resistance. The result is longer tread life and better fuel economy. A more recent design of the radial-ply utilizes a zero degree ply. In this design, the plies wrap around the inner circumference of the tire. The zero degree design offers lighter weight construction and helps the tire maintain it shape at higher speeds. Due to differences in the construction described, bias-ply and radial-ply tires exhibit dramatically different behavior under the same driving conditions.

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Car Salespersons Are People Too

Brad Train

2003-06-01 16:04:00

Question:  How do capacitors work?

Answer:  Thanks to the several places I used to research the answer to this question, I think I have some information that will be helpful.One example of how a capacitor is used is in a point-and-shoot camera.  You see, in a way, a capacitor is a little like a battery. Although it works in completely different ways, capacitors and batteries both store electrical energy. If you are familiar with batteries, you know that a battery has two terminals. Inside the battery, chemical reactions produce electrons on one terminal and absorb electrons at the other terminal.  A capacitor is a much simpler device, and it cannot produce new electrons -- it only stores them. The Basics   Like a battery, a capacitor has two terminals. Inside the capacitor, the terminals connect to two metal plates separated by a dielectric. The dielectric can be air, paper, plastic or anything else that does not conduct electricity and keeps the plates from touching each other. You can easily make a capacitor from two pieces of aluminum foil and a piece of paper. It won't be a particularly good capacitor in terms of its storage capacity, but it will work. When you connect a capacitor to a battery, here’s what happens: The plate on the capacitor that attaches to the negative terminal of the battery accepts electrons that the battery is producing. The plate on the capacitor that attaches to the positive terminal of the battery loses electrons to the battery.    Once it's charged, the capacitor has the same voltage as the battery (1.5 volts on the battery means 1.5 volts on the capacitor). For a small capacitor, the capacity is small. But large capacitors can hold quite a bit of charge. You can find capacitors as big as soda cans, for example, that hold enough charge to light a flashlight bulb for a minute or more. When you see lightning in the sky, what you are seeing is a huge capacitor where one plate is the cloud and the other plate is the ground, and the lightning is the charge releasing between these two "plates." Obviously, in a capacitor that large, you can hold a huge amount of charge.    Suppose you have a battery, a light bulb and a capacitor. If the capacitor is pretty big, what you would notice is that, when you connected the battery, the light bulb would light up as current flows from the battery to the capacitor to charge it up. The bulb would get progressively dimmer and finally go out once the capacitor reached its capacity. Then you could remove the battery and replace it with a wire. Current would flow from one plate of the capacitor to the other. The light bulb would light and then get dimmer and dimmer, finally going out once the capacitor had completely discharged (the same number of electrons on both plates).    One way to visualize the action of a capacitor is to imagine it as a water tower hooked to a pipe. A water tower "stores" water pressure -- when the water system pumps produce more water than a town needs, the excess is stored in the water tower. Then, at times of high demand, the excess water flows out of the tower to keep the pressure up. A capacitor stores electrons in the same way, and can then release them later.   The unit of capacitance is a farad. A 1-farad capacitor can store one coulomb (coo-lomb) of charge at 1 volt. A coulomb is 6.25e18 (6.25 * 10^18, or 6.25 billion billion) electrons. One amp represents a rate of electron flow of 1 coulomb of electrons per second, so a 1-farad capacitor can hold 1 amp-second of electrons at 1 volt.

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Car Salespersons Are People Too

Brad Train

2003-06-01 12:47:00

: How does hang gliding work?

ANSWER: The hang glider is actually a triangle-shaped airfoil, a modified parachute (known as a flexible wing) made of nylon or Dacron fabric. The triangular shape is maintained by rigid aluminum tubes and cables and is designed to allow air to flow over the surface to make the wing rise. Newer, high-performance hang-glider designs use a rigid wing with stiff aluminum struts inside the fabric to give it shape, eliminating the need for supporting cables.    To launch, the pilot must run down a slope to get air moving across the wing at about 15 to 25 miles per hour (24 to 40 kph). This movement of air over the surface of the wing generates lift, the force that counters gravity and keeps the glider aloft. Once aloft, gravity (the weight of the hang glider and pilot) pulls the glider back toward Earth and propels the glider forward, continually causing air to flow over the wing. In addition to the horizontal movement of air, hang gliders can get lift from rising currents of air, such as columns of hot air (thermal lift) or air deflected upward by mountainous or ridge topography (ridge lift). As the hang glider and pilot move through the air, they collide with air molecules. The frictional force caused by these collisions is known as drag, which slows the glider down. The amount of drag is proportional to the airspeed of the hang glider: The faster the glider moves, the more drag it creates.    As with soarplane gliders, the balance of these three forces (lift, drag, gravity) determines how high the hang glider can go, how far it can travel and how long it can stay aloft. The performance of a hang glider and the distance it can travel is determined by its glide ratio (lift/drag ratio), the ratio of the forward distance traveled to the vertical distance dropped. Unlike soarplane gliders, hang gliders have neither movable surfaces on the wing nor a tail to deflect airflow and maneuver the craft. Instead, the pilot is suspended from the hang glider's center-of-mass (hence the term "hang" glider) by way of a harness, maneuvering the hang glider by shifting his or her weight (changing the center-of-mass) in the direction of the intended turn. The pilot can also change the angle that the wing makes with the horizontal axis (angle of attack), which determines the airspeed and the glide ratio of the hang glider. If the pilot pulls back on the glider, tipping its nose down, the glider speeds up. If the pilot pushes forward on the glider, tipping its nose up, the glider slows down or even stalls. In stalling, no air flows over the wing so the glider can't fly.