New Car for My Parents

One of my tasks when I returned home was to help my parents shop for a new car. My family had a 2000 Toyota Echo that served us well for over a decade, but the little problems are starting to add up and it was about time to get a new car. My parents needed a daily commuter, so the requirements were that the car is good on gas, is reliable, can fit into our small garage, but is bigger than the little Echo. In the end, my parents purchased a grey 2013 Toyota Matrix base model.

Family's new Toyota Matrix.
My parents’ new Toyota Matrix.

The current Matrix model has been around for a couple of years. It doesn’t have the greatest ratings anymore since competitors have newer models in the segment, but my family trusts Toyota’s reliability, and the Matrix is pretty tall and roomy for a compact hatchback. It’s not that much larger than the Echo, but it’s a little longer and wider which makes a difference especially in the back. The Matrix fits into our narrow garage, albeit the parking is a little more difficult than before. And the 1.8 L engine, which may consume a little more fuel than the Echo, is still pretty good on gas. With the new Matrix, we finally have a car that has power windows and locks and keyless entry. The Matrix is the third car my family has had, after the Echo and a rust-riddled 1990 Ford Tempo that was our first car. Hopefully the new car will remain problem free for even longer than the little Echo.

Replacing My Car’s Air Filters

This is my third post on the blog within a week. I guess I feel like writing more here these days despite the fact that I should probably be spending the time to do research, do homework, do something with my social life or even sleep. Anyways, here is another mundane post of me doing some simple task, and this time it’s replacing my car’s air filters.

One of the old filters
One of the old filters. You can see how dirty it is.

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One Year of Car Ownership

Spring has arrived, and I realized that I’ve been a car owner for a year already as I bought my first car late March last year. The car is still the largest single purchase that I have made in my life up to this point. Insurance is not cheap given I’m in the “high-risk young male driver” category, and the car isn’t exactly good on gas, but I didn’t need to spend too much money on it because I don’t drive it very much. In the last twelve months, I’ve put 3000-3500 miles on the car, and I’m sure a good chunk of that was from the time my parents and I drove down to Washington D. C.. The trip to D. C. is the longest trip I’ve taken this car on. For myself, I only drive the car on weekends to buy groceries and perhaps go to the odd social gathering. Having a car is of course very nice, as the car is big and comfy and has pretty much all of the amenities I need. Having a car is also almost a necessity given the limited public transportation available in the area. It’s so much more convenient to be able to go where I want instead of  see if others can give me a ride or waiting for the bus (in the cold hard winter). Speaking of winter, one thing I was concerned about was having to dig my car out from a lot of snow since I don’t have covered parking, but luckily the winters has been pretty mild this year, and so I didn’t really experience the treacherous winter driving conditions and having to excavate my car from two feet of snow.

Over the last year, the car has been pretty good as it didn’t develop any problems on its own. I did spend some money to repair the car when a rodent got into the hood and chewed up some plastic and wires, but otherwise the car has behaved nicely in its first year under my ownership. I’m not a car maintenance expert, but I’ll be sure to get all the necessary maintenance done so the car will continue to operate without issues. Hopefully the car will be alright as long as I own it, and I’ll likely keep this car until I get my doctoral degree and maybe even beyond that.

Jumping a Car Battery

In places that have cold winters (such as the place I’m in right now), cars that haven’t been driven in a while sometimes won’t start because of a dead or low battery. It didn’t happen to my car, but it did happen to a friend’s VW Jetta and I was asked to help jump start the car. I’ve never done a jump start before and also haven’t touched the battery of my car before, so this was a new experience for me. The friend had jumper cables, and connecting the cables is pretty easy and there are plenty of online guides (such as this one) on the topic. Basically, you hook up the positive terminal of the dead battery with one end of the red cable and then the positive terminal of the good battery with the other end of the red cable. Then you connect the black cable to the negative terminal of the good battery and then connect the other end of the black cable to an exposed metal part of the dead car’s engine bay. Once that is done, start the good car, and then try to start the dead car while the good car is running. Once dead car has started, keep it running and disconnect the jumper cable in reverse order of connection.

Although the process itself is simple, it took us a hour or so to finally get success. The main reason is because I’ve never messed with the battery of my own car and because my car is designed differently than most cars. Unlike most cars where the battery is under the hood, the battery of the Mercedes ML 350 is in the floor behind the front passenger seat. There are leads for the battery accessible in the engine compartment, but they have plastic covers and it took me forever to remove those covers. I guess the original owner never touched those leads and that might be why they were so hard to pull off. When we finally got everything hooked up and tried the jump start, it didn’t quite work. The Jetta made the cranking noise instead of the clicking noise when it wasn’t connected to my car, but it couldn’t start. Thankfully, another friend returned and offered up his VW Golf, and with the Golf we were finally able to jump start the Jetta. I guess it takes one VW to jump start another VW.

Anyways, this was a good learning experience. I’m not sure why we couldn’t jump start with my car, but it might have something to do with the design of the car. Perhaps Mercedes cars aren’t built for jumping other vehicles. If my car ever gets a low or dead battery, hopefully my friends’ cars can jump start mine. I’ll make sure to take my car for a spin every few days to make sure the battery doesn’t drain though.

Vacation Over, Back to Work Once Again

My four week long winter vacation back home has come to end, and so I flew back to the small town where I am pursuing graduate studies. Obviously, I wish I could stay home longer, but I have work to do and classes to attend. It’s the life of a graduate student. I am already fortunate that my adviser was nice enough to let me return home for so long, so I can’t complain too much. My time at home wasn’t quite as productive as last year’s winter vacation, and so I’m sure I have plenty of work to do.

So what have I been up to during my time back in Vancouver? Not much as usual. In terms of research related things, I had some assigned reading to go through, but I don’t think I really understood anything I read. I don’t think I was that productive with my projects either. I mostly just stayed home and relaxed, and I didn’t go anywhere far. I went shopping a few times, and also hung out with some friends from college. Since I was back in Vancouver with its excellent selection of Chinese restaurants, I couldn’t resist eating out. The area that my grad school is in has some Chinese food places and they aren’t horrible, but they are not comparable to what Vancouver has. The fact that I ate more while at home in combination with less exercise meant that I gained around 10lbs during the break. It’s not that I didn’t exercise, but I didn’t exercise as often or as hard as when I am at school. I did play more badminton while I’m back, but that wasn’t quite enough to make up for extra intake. I don’t think my badminton skills has gotten any better or worse than before, and I probably need to train a bit to become better.

In terms of things that I actually accomplished while back at home, I helped my father replace a heating element on my family’s flat top stove. The element burnt out some time during the year and my father didn’t get around to fixing it. I am no handyman, but in this age of the internet it’s easy to find information online on how to fix stuff, and replacing the element wasn’t a particularly difficult task. I also helped my dad’s trusty but aging Toyota Echo pass its emissions inspection. I bought a car diagnostic trouble code scanner back from the States to investigate the check engine light on the Echo. The Echo is getting a bit old and has high mileage, so it’s not really worth it to spend hundreds of dollars to fix anything. The check engine light was a persistent problem though, and I thought the car would have trouble passing even if we turned off the check engine light with the scanner. However, by some stroke of luck, our trusty little Echo managed to pass its emission check against all odds, and now my dad can keep on driving it for two more years.

So that’s all for my boring little winter vacation. Staying at home over the break has been very nice, but I still have a Ph.D degree I need to finish. It’s time to get back to class, get some research work done, and also to work off the pounds that I’ve gained during this vacation.

Autel Maxiscan MS300 OBD-II Code Reader

One thing that I brought back home was an Autel Maxiscan MS300 OBD-II Code Reader that is used to read diagnostic trouble codes from cars. My father’s aging 2000 Toyota Echo had its check engine light on and bringing it to a mechanic to read the code costs >$70, so we decided to try an inexpensive code reader instead and at around $20 on Amazon, the Autel reader fit the bill. This post contains some pictures of the code reader and how well or not well it worked for us.

Autel Maxiscan MS300
The Autel Maxiscan MS300 OBD reader with manual and CD

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My First Year in Graduate School

It’s been a year since I’ve left home and started pursuing graduate studies in the United States. It seems like the older I get, the faster time passes. This one year anniversary is the perfect occasion to write my yearly reflections article. Since I had to relocate and settle down in a new place, my first year in graduate school has been quite eventful… when you compare to my years as an undergrad student at least. The article actually starts from the summer of 2010 after I graduated with my bachelor’s. Keep on reading if you want to find out what I’ve been up to in the past year.

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My Car Was Attacked By a Rodent

The title says it all. Today I noticed my car’s check engine light was on, so I decided to pop open the hood. I wasn’t expecting to find anything since most of the time check engine lights come on because some sensor malfunction, but what I found was a mess inside my engine compartment. There was insulation foam all over the place, and a plastic compartment was clearly chewed open (see pictures). I popped the hood a week ago and the car was perfectly fine, so it must have happened in the last few days. Judging by the damage, the culprit is likely a rodent. There are lots of squirrels where I live, but it could be rats as well. I’m not sure why they suddenly decided to attack my car now given I’ve had my car for three months now and park at the same lot. The good news is that the car still drives, but that doesn’t change the fact that this sucks since it’ll probably cost at least a couple hundred to fix if not more, and who knows if whatever did the damage will return after the repair. Maybe it’s time for me to start shopping around for rodent repellent. In the meantime, I decided to park on the street to see if it’ll stop our little furry enemies from coming back.

Car Rodent Damage 1
The culprit chewed open the plastic box and left pieces of grey foam all over the place.
Car Rodent Damage 2
The engine bay after I cleaned up some of the foam. Notice that there is more damage above the engine (yellow foam).