Light duty pick-up trucks are the big news this year, with the Detroit three all putting new power trains in play. Ford is technically the oldest, having introduced EcoBoost last year. General Motors is the newest with EcoTec. With the Sierra-Silverado twins, General Motors has dropped the DuraTec name and gone with EcoTec3. The logic […] Read more
Stories by Charles Renny
Getting a grip on mud
They are optimistically known as mudders, and until recently we had little use for this class of tire. The casing is the first important building block of any tire. In the case of light truck tires, there is no point in being cheap and buying a passenger car tire. With the rim sizes and load […] Read more
Are pneumatic cars a lot of hot air?
Tata Motors of India has announced it will build a car that runs on compressed air. A pneumatic car. Before you dismiss Tata as airheads or escapees from a rubber room, it would be fair to point out they bought the Jaguar/Land Rover group from Ford – for cash. Tata’s parent company owns about 60 […] Read more
Computers provide luxury, power
I am often asked why we need all the electronic controls in our cars. After all, they don’t always work well during our winters, they are expensive to fix because we can no longer do the work at home and it just doesn’t seem right to do a tune up with a laptop instead of […] Read more
Toyota deals with fall from grace
Toyota’s vehicle recalls have been well documented in the news. Unfortunately for consumers and Toyota Canada, most media outlets do not understand that Canadian Toyotas and their accessories are different than American Toyotas. In addition, reporting suspected problems is different in each country. In Canada, recalls are not initiated until the company can prove it […] Read more
Nitrogenated gasoline: snake oil or the real deal?
When Shell began advertising nitrogen enhanced fuel, I was skeptical. It’s not as if we’re short of nitrogen on our combustion chambers because nitrogen makes up roughly 78 percent by volume of the air that we breathe. Because of the way nitrogen be-haves in the combustion chamber, automakers spend plenty of money making sure the […] Read more
Transmissions find balance between fuel economy and power – Getting Around
Automatic transmissions were three-speed hydraulic units about two decades ago. Then came electronic controls and lock-up torque converters, all of which were developed in the name of improved fuel economy. Exotic cars of the day, such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW, began to use four-speed automatics. Today, four- and five-speed automatics are common and light duty […] Read more
Electric car making a comeback – Getting Around
One of the most amusing points about the development of electric cars is that in the early years of the automobile industry they were seen as a convenience. Clara Ford, Henry Ford’s wife, had an electric car, as did Alice DuPont of Dupont Motor Cars and General Motors. The reason was simple. Gasoline engines were […] Read more
Disc brake calipers: sliders vs. squeezers – Getting Around
If you have to resort to mathematical formulas, you’ve lost your audience. Well, brake systems are all applied mathematics, whether it be fluid dynamics, hydraulics or thermo- dynamics. Suffice to say that when you push the brake pedal you unleash an impressive series of actions. I became interested in brake systems when the brake pedal […] Read more
Rear disc brakes vs. rear drum brakes – Getting Around
There is a saying that the table is round. In the case of brake systems on pickup trucks, this means that what fell from favour a decade ago is back. In case you haven’t read the specifications sheet for the new Dodge Durango, Dakota, some Ram pickups, or the sheets on 2006 Silverado-Sierra trucks, drum […] Read more
