Men Free Blog

If you’ve ever had the need to raise one side of your car, truck, RV or trailer a couple feet off the ground, the Titan Exhaust Air Jack is there to give you a lift. Quite simply, the jack is nothing more than a heavy-duty balloon inflated by the exhaust gas of your own vehicle. Once the deflated bag is placed under the vehicle, the Air Jack’s inflation hose is connected to the vehicle’s exhaust pipe. The engine is started and hot gasses are forced into the bag until the woven PVC-coated polyester bag lifts a vehicle a full 30 inches off the ground, which is plenty of height to get the wheels off the ground for most vehicles. With prices starting around $120, the device offers several advantages over traditional jacks. First, it can be used on soft surfaces (mud, sand, or snow) where other jacks just don’t work. Second, it easily lifts one whole side of the vehicle at once, saving tons of time. Best of all, the low pressure bag doesn’t require placement on normal jacking points so you more freedom to lift where you want and then place jack stands exactly where you need them. The military and emergency services have apparently been using jacks of this type for years, so the idea isn’t just full of hot air.

It’s being reported as the second most incredible thing next to cold fusion - a VOLKSWAGEN traveling above 100 mph? What next? We suppose a bunch of kids from England will kick Elvis off the top of the charts. Welcome to the 21st century, out of touch news-ninnies. Volkswagen Beetles - proper air-cooled medieval rollerskates - indeed have a tough time cracking 100 mph in stock trim. A New Beetle, which is really just a modern Rabbit in drag, can easily crank that speedo right around to 125 with its 5-cylinder mill.

In this case, the news media is just piling its idiocy on top of a stupid driver who tried running from the police. It rarely ends well when a driver decides to run, and the case of Nathan Hurlbirt and his gray VW are no different. Hurlbirt and a female colleague were nipping along I-25 in Littleton, Colorado when a Sheriff’s deputy took issue with the pair’s 115 mph speed and attempted to pull them over. Hurlbirt took off, instead, and the deputy broke off pursuit shortly before the VW crashed after exiting the highway. Hurlbirt and passenger escaped injury, but not the long arm of the law. The lack of injuries is the incredible part; try crashing an old Bug and see if there’s anything left to put cuffs on.

Anybody who watches Autoline on Detroit or reads our Autoline on Autoblog posts will know that John McElroy is a certifiably nice guy. Bob Lutz is known more as a brash talker who isn’t afraid to make his views known, regardless of what others may think. Both of them, though, are very closely attuned to the auto industry. The head product-honcho at GM and our very own Mr. Nice Guy share the opinion that the Feds should suspend their ever-increasing crash-testing standards for a few years. If a car is safe enough for our European relatives, it should be safe enough for us, right? In reality, this is not the case, as the U.S. standards differ enough from those across the pond that a car sometimes needs to be designed specifically to pass one or the other. For this reason, the Chevy Beat won’t be sold on U.S. soil.

To complete the deal, McElroy also suggests doing the same for environmental standards. As with crash tests, though both the U.S. and the European regulations are strict, they don’t quite match. Therefore, many cars — especially those equipped with diesel engines — can’t be sold in the States despite being available in Europe. Lutz doesn’t specifically touch on this point, but we’d hazard a guess that he’d go along with it as well.

As is usually the case when complaints of unintended acceleration are levied against a vehicle, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has concluded that no specific vehicular defects have been found in 2004-2008 Toyota Tacomas. The mid-sized truck had been under fire from over 400 owners who claimed their trucks had accelerated without them touching the gas resulting in 51 crashes and 12 injuries. According to Toyota, however, the truck features a drive-by-wire system and its computer records any event of a mismatch between the gas pedal and the engine’s throttle. None of the trucks involved in accidents reported any such codes. The NHTSA has closed its investigation and believes that driver error is the most likely cause for the vast majority of complaints while a few could be attributed to loose floor mats.

While the fact that the Tacoma has received so many specific complaints is worrisome, we are not big believers in unintended acceleration and tend to agree that publicity of the issue may well have attracted more erroneous claims. Debris stuck under the brake or pedals that are just closer together than some drivers are used to remain possible explanations, but could hardly be considered defects.

Vägverket, the Swedish Road Administration, is reporting that General Motors used ten human cadavers for crash research. While it isn’t clear which GM vehicle hosted the corpses on their one-way trip into a wall, a spokesman for Vägverket said it was most likely the Saab brand. The spokesman was also quick to point out that all of the cadavers were people “who had donated their own bodies.” (Well, that is comforting to know!)

While cadavers were used in the earliest crash tests (first started in the late 1930s), most of us were under the assumption that fully-instrumented million-dollar synthetic crash test dummies, or computer simulations, had replaced human remains in current testing. Apparently, some folks at GM may have been thinking otherwise. As of today, neither General Motors or Saab have acknowledged any tests involving dead bodies, but our hunch says this issue hasn’t been laid to rest. Thanks for the tip, Will!

.When an eight-year-old boy on a bicycle gets hit by a car while riding in the middle of the street, the blame often points directly at the youth. However, if the car in question just happens to be a quiet hybrid-electric… there just may be reason to accuse the vehicle.

Last weekend, a youthful Owen Erickson was riding his two-wheeler with a friend when he was struck by a Toyota Prius and tossed onto the hood of the popular hybrid. Thankfully, he was unhurt. His mother, however, was quick to place some of the blame on the “totally silent” Prius, claiming her son never heard it coming. As a scapegoat, the hybrid-electric vehicle is taking more than its fair share of heat. Two years ago, we blogged about the silent danger of hybrids. Earlier this year, Maryland launched a study, and passed legislation aimed at vehicle noise levels (more specifically, the “lack of” audible decibels), citing a legitimate concern for the blind. Just last month, a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives to study whether or not a “minimum sound level” needs to be established for these highly-efficient silent runners.

We obviously haven’t “heard” the end of this hybrid-electric argument as it begins to gain momentum around the country. Whether future Prius models are equipped with blaring sirens or not, we do know that Moms will still need to teach their children to not play in the middle of the street. Thanks for the tip, Tyler!
[Source: KARE 11]

Drivers give in to a lot of distractions behind the wheel. Phone calls, eating, drinking, and slapping the kids around are one thing, but something that’s always irked us is drivers traveling with pets on their laps. Aside from the possibility of Fluffy freaking out and doing its doggone best to create a crash, we’ve always envisioned a Chihuahua-sized cavity in someone’s chest after the airbag deploys. Well, California Assemblyman Bill Maze shares our concern and has proposed a bill to make it illegal for an animal to be held on a driver’s lap while behind the wheel. The bill passed the Assembly on Monday by a vote of 44-11 and is on its way to the state Senate before landing on Arnie’s desk. Here’s hoping that the Governator does what’s right for man and his best friend.

[Source: AP]

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…your accelerator pedal breaks clean off. Actually, the owner of this 2008 Mitsubishi EVO X GSR swears he wasn’t caning the car excessively hard when his go pedal snapped in two. Posted on the evolutionm.net forums by ‘DRAG’, these pictures show the severed pedal in question. DRAG claims he was at a stoplight at the time (in front of some STI owners, no less) when he started to leave the light with a little “enthusiasm”. As he pushed the GSR’s accelerator to the floorboards, the thing’s plastic arm broke off clean. Clearly frustrated with his $40,000+ automobile, DRAG called the dealer and waited for some roadside assistance that never came. To make a long story short, Mitsubishi refused to replace the pedal under warranty, but the dealership decided to pick up the tab anyway. Hopefully Mitsubishi doesn’t view this case as an isolated incident caused by someone pushing their EVO too hard, because A) you should be able to push an EVO really hard and B) EVOs have been pushed to their limits while being tested by members of the automotive press and we’ve never heard of anything like this happening. Take a peek at some more pics of the completely cracked pedal in the gallery below. Thanks for the tip, thedriver!

UPDATE: It was actually the accelerator pedal, not the clutch pedal as originally stated. Post above has been corrected.
[Source: evolutionm.net]

Lane departure sensors and adaptive cruise control have helped to prevent accidents and save lives, and new technology from the University of Michigan hopes to take the those ideas to the next level. U of M’s Integrated Vehicle-Based Safety System warns drivers if they’re about to hit another vehicle while changing lanes; if they’re about to leave the road; and if they’re going to rear-end another vehicle. The system improves on existing technology by integrating data from video, radio sensors and GPS to warn drivers of dangerous situations and give them the path of least possible harm.

The university secured over $32M in funding from state and local governments plus several corporations, which will pay for the testing of 16 passenger cars and 10 commercial trucks equipped with the system. IIHS predicts that tens of thousands of lives will be saved each year if lane departure and forward crash systems are improved, so here’s to hoping the Wolverines have a smash hit on their hands. No pun intended.

[Source: Detroit News]

When you growl out lyrics like “we all just wanna be big rock stars,” even satirically, as Chad Kroeger did when he laid down the vocal for Nickelback’s “Rockstar,” there’s bound to be an overtone of schadenfreude when you get busted for acting like a rockstar. Kroeger was pinched in 2006 for driving his Lamborghini too fast and too drunk (amusingly chronicled here). The wheels of justice don’t turn as fast as a lead-singer-piloted Lambo, apparently, so Kroeger’s (née Turton) sentence was just recently meted out in Vancouver. Twice the legal blood alcohol level and 80 miles per hour will net you a fine of 600 Loonies (like $2,000 now that the US dollar is all Caspar Milquetoast) and a driving suspension for the rest of the year. Oh darn. I think we’d be inclined to consider ourselves lucky if we received such a light tap on the wrist, but the indignity of it all will see Kroeger appealing. When he eventually loses the second appeal, we suggest he be sentenced to writing a truly new song.

[Source: BBC]