Late Summer Miscellany

It's been an interesting few weeks. Mostly health-wise, which I'll spell out in greater detail this Tuesday. However, a couple things have occurred otherwise recently.

My car started making a rattly sound in the front right. Took it to the mechanic and turns out I have the beginnings of a rod knock. Yuck. This means the engine will need to be replaced (!) sooner or later (hopefully later). They put some thickening junk in there and thicker motor oil to hopefully prolong things, but it's starting to get symptomatic just a couple weeks later. I have to get it smogged before September is out so I'll see what happens there. It's going to be expensive to fix but cheaper than buying something else.

I got a new phone - an HTC Touch Pro. Thanks to my Verizon New Every Two promotion, I only had to pay tax. I like it a lot so far - I had gotten used to a QWERTY with my enV and had missed it on the XV6900 but definitely find a smartphone to be exceedingly useful. Now I have the best of both worlds.

I took a motorcycle ride yesterday down to Polly's Gourmet Coffee in Long Beach with my buddy Michael. It was really hot so we got iced coffee drinks, which were incredible. Michael and his wife have a miniature dachshund that had puppies a couple months ago so I went over to check them out this afternoon. Unfortunately, my parents aren't animal people so no puppy for me.

Cool Web Application Found: Fuelly

I just discovered the coolest thing since sliced bread. It's this web page called Fuelly. You put all the pertinent numbers each time you fill up your gas tank and it keeps track of your mileage. Of course, being a geek, I already had a spreadsheet that does this. I signed up (for free) and put my Corolla in my "garage" anyway, which you can see here (I already put in the back information I had).

New Corolla Seat Upholstery

As I mentioned in April Budget Summary, I just got my Corolla's seats re-upholstered.

The original fabric was getting pretty worn and the color had faded quite a bit. In fact, the fabric on the driver's side outside bolster was worn through and the underlying foam was starting to wear as well. Something definitely needed to be done. I ultimately decided on re-upholstery after considering a few options:

• Seat covers: High quality ones are expensive and still look like covers. Most of the rest are junk, gaudy, or both.
• Used seats from Japan: On the positive side, the driver's seat would be less worn (RHD in Japan). However, they're hard to find, expensive to buy and ship, still 20 years old, interior patterns don't match, and lumbar support is on the wrong seat.
• New racing or sport seats: Quite expensive and definitely won't match existing interior. Comfort would probably be the best of all options.
• Have existing seats re-upholstered: Can probably get fabric to match pretty close, seat style stays original, don't have to have anything bulky shipped. It's still expensive and I'd have to be without my car for a while.

Upon the recommendation of a friend from work, I went with:

AP Auto Interiors
Alberto Perez
2344 Lomita Blvd.
Lomita, CA 90717
310-539-1382

...and I'm really glad that I did! Alberto did an excellent job at picking a fabric that matches the original tweed very closely and the upholstery job itself. Here are a couple pictures (click on each for full-size):

The passenger's seat:

Closeup of headrest (new material):

Closeup of door panel (old material):

In addition to his excellent craftsmanship, Alberto added a bit of padding to the seat and back to return it to a firmer feel but not enough to make it look puffy. As a final bonus, I simply had to drop off my passenger's seat a week ago and only had to leave my car for a few hours yesterday, when I didn't need it anyway.

Total cost was about $615, of which I estimate $150 was materials based on the tax. Money well spent in my opinion.