Earlier this evening I realized I didn't know why my RAV4 has a tachometer to show engine RPM. My Camry had one too. I don't think I ever look at it except to tell if the engine is already running. What is that doing for me, really?

With a manual transmission, the tachometer could prevent over-revving the engine and help me judge shift points, but the automatic transmission takes care of all that for me normally. And even if I downshifted---or used a manual transmission---couldn't a simple limiter keep it from redlining?

I suppose I could use it as a proxy for fuel consumption, allowing me to improve the fuel economy of my driving habits. (Kind of like a vacuum gauge.) But if that's the point, why not just drive a fuel consumption meter right off the engine management computer?

I think I'd rather have something more useful, like oil and charging system gauges.

We've had the new Toyota RAV4 for about 10 days, and I have a few observations:

• There's a little digital display in the middle of the dashboard with some numbers on it, but when I first saw it I couldn't figure out where the odometer was. After a moment, I realized that the odometer must be that little "4" all by itself on one row. I guess I'm not used to seeing less than six digits...
• The RAV4 is a complicated piece of machinery. It's got a 5-speed automatic transmission with a switch to lock the differential. There's anti-lock brakes, traction control, and stability control. It's got daytime running lights, parking lights, regular headlights, high beams, and fog lights. It's got front and rear window wipers, both with intermittent mode. The heating and air conditioning system has about 15 buttons. (I haven't bought a new car in 10 years, so I don't know how much of this stuff is standard on cars these days, how much is because it's an SUV, and how much is because of the trim line we chose.)
• To me, the JBL logo on all the sound system components looks more like UBL, and UBL means Usama bin Laden---the old official spelling of Osama bin Laden. It strikes an odd note every time I see it: I'll probably always think of it as the Usama bin Laden audio system.
• I wasn't interested in getting heated seats, because I never really had a problem with my butt feeling cold while the rest of the car was warm. However, they came with the trimline we chose so we have them anyway, and I've learned something important: When I start the car cold, the heated seats will be the first thing to get warm.
• The RAV4 is very easy to drive. From the first test drive at the dealer, it felt just like my Camry, but with a jacked-up suspension. Even that feeling has gone away by now. It has very quickly become just our car.
• At night it's easy to forget to turn on the headlights because the running lights come on as soon as I start the car and look just like the headlights. It's only when I get to a dark area that I notice how much dimmer they are.
• The tail lights are all LEDs, which should last forever. I don't know if all cars have this option these days, but they should.
• The rear window and the side windows behind the first row of seats are all tinted dark enough to keep people from looking in. I didn't even notice that until the second or third day we had the car.

In roughly 10 days, we've put 804 miles on the car. 

After my trusty old Camry gave up the ghost, my wife and I decided to buy an SUV. It was a big deal for me, so I'm going to be blogging about it a bit, in case anyone is interested.

Buying an SUV is insanely complicated because the category covers a lot of vehicles designed for a lot of different purposes, and we had to make some choices. We settled on a few basic criteria.

• Car-like. SUVs come in two basic types: truck-like and car-like. Truck-like SUVs are strong and heavy and tough, and they're suitable for some fairly serious off-roading. Car-like SUV's are basically cars with beefed-up suspensions and drivetrains. This will be our first SUV, so we don't want anything too radical, and since we're not planning on any serious off-roading, and we'd appreciate a smooth ride, we decided on a car-like SUV.
• Small. There are only two of us, and we don't have hobbies that require a lot of hauling, so we don't need a huge vehicle.
• 4-wheel drive. We want a car that will get us through the snow. Besides, if it doesn't have 4-wheel drive, is it really an SUV?
• 6-cylinder engine. I just don't feel comfortable with a 4-banger in a heavy vehicle, and even the smallest SUV is pretty heavy. On the other hand, we're not planning to do any towing, so an 8-cylinder engine seems like gas-guzzling overkill. A supercharged 4-cylinder engine would also have been okay.
• Dad-compliant. My 88-year-old arthritic father has to be able to get in and out of the passenger seat, so it can't be the kind of SUV you have to climb into.

That narrowed it down a lot. After a whole bunch of research and a couple of trips to nearby dealers, we decided to get a Toyota RAV4.

To be honest, we'd been leaning toward the RAV4 even before we did the research. It fit our criteria, and it was a Toyota. Our Camry had impressed the heck out of us for eleven years, and we felt comfortable with the strength of Toyota engineering.

Then it was time to choose the options we wanted:

• V6 engine and 4WD. This is going to be our workhorse car for quite a while.
• Moonroof.
• Towing package. Not the towing gear, just the upgraded radiator and alternator to make it a more rugged vehicle.
• Leather seats. We got them on the Camry as a luxury, but they proved to be far more durable than cloth seats.
• JBL 6-CD Premium Audio. We didn't really want it, but we let the salesman talk us into it. I'm sure we'll feel real bad about that as we bomb down the road blasting our tunes.
• Heated seats. Never had them, wanted to try them.

There were also a few things we didn't want:

• No third row of seating. We rarely even need the back seat, and the RAV4's third row is only suitable for children or dwarves.
• No satellite radio. We've had it, and we didn't think it was worth it.
• No navigation. We've got a portable GPS system.
• No remote start, no upgraded alarm, no first-aid kit, no cargo tray, no hood protector, no headphones. All are available aftermarket.
• No white paint. Too much like a rental car. Any other color would be okay.

The dealer didn't have one like that in stock, so for the first time ever, we ordered a car.

We picked it up on Saturday. I'll probably be RAV4-blogging for a while.

Ever since we bought our last car in 1998, my wife and I have been thinking that our next car should be an SUV of some kind.

Our 1997 Camry feels roomy inside, but that's because of good ergonomics. If you try to fit in something not shaped like a human, like a bunch of Banker's Boxes or a set of shelves from the Container Store, you quickly realize that the back seat has an awkward shape. The trunk isn't much better. It's got room for a lot of small things, like grocery bags, but when you try to put in anything big, you realize that there are a lot of protrusions into the trunk space.

The Camry also has some problems in the snow. It's got traction-controlled front-wheel drive, so it's not a pig like the Thunderbird, but it's slung so low that it gets stuck on unplowed streets and parking lots because snow gets packed up underneath it, which takes weight off the wheels, killing the traction.

On the other hand, the Camry had been refusing to wear out. There had been some problems with the water pump and the timing chain around 120,000 miles, and it was burning oil for a while too, but my mechanic fixed that, and the car seemed fine, even after almost 11 years and 190,000 miles.

In fact, it was running so well that right before Christmas I decided to invest a little money to fix it up. I decided to spring for a new wiper motor because intermittant mode had gone away a few years ago and I wanted it back. I also bought four new tires and a new battery. The car had been so reliable that I was hoping to try for a cool quarter-million miles.

A week later, I was driving it one night when the oil light came on and stayed on. I had it towed back to my mechanic, and he called me the next day with the bad news: It had a spun bearing, which is a fatal engine problem. He said he could install a rebuilt engine for a few thousand dollars, but given that every other critical system was just as old, he thought it would be a bad idea.

We hadn't been planning to buy a new car, so our first thought was to just buy another Toyota Camry. But after thinking about it, we decided it was time to get that SUV we'd been wanting.

I've got work to do and this is long enough, so I'll write more about it later.

Chicago just got pounded with a lot of snow, and driving in it is turning out to be an educational experience. Or maybe I should say a re-educational experience.

After 190,000 miles, my Toyota Camry finally gave up the ghost a few weeks ago. I haven't got a new car yet, but a friend was nice enough to loan me one of her family's cars in the meantime. It's a '97 Thunderbird, and I'm very greatful, but the car is a bit of a handful in the snow.

I guess I've become spoiled by anti-lock brakes and traction control, neither of which the T-bird has. I have to be a little more careful than I'm used to. The worst thing about the T-bird, however, is that it has rear-wheel drive, and I haven't driven a rear-wheel drive car in the snow in 15 years.

For those of you too young to have driven a rear-wheel drive car, or those of you living too far south to have driven a rear-wheel drive car in the snow, let me explain.

If you give a front-wheel drive car too much gas (assuming you have no traction or stability control system) the excess power going to the front wheels tears them loose from the surface of the snow, and they begin to slide. If you're in a turn at the time, the front of the car will not turn as tightly as you'd like and you'll go wide around the turn. If you're going straight, you'll just not accelerate, and the front end of the car may twitch a little. The rear wheels, however, have no power going to them at all---they're just there to hold up the back end of the car---so they'll just keep rolling along like always.

(Heavy braking---without an anti-lock system---can unstick the rear wheels by locking them up, but they're not going to slide otherwise unless you severely mishandle the car.)

Recovering from a front-wheel drive slide is easy: Just take your foot off the gas and straighten out the steering wheel. As soon as the tires are pointed roughly in the direction you're going, you'll have traction again. Even if you don't straighten the wheels, the tires will probably pick up traction again as soon as you slow down. With a slight jerk, you're back in control.

On a rear-wheel drive car like the T-bird, the power is all going to the rear wheels, so stepping on the gas too much will make them tear loose.  If you're going perfectly straight on a level surface, that's not a big deal: Your car just stops accelerating, and you recover by taking your foot off the gas.

But if there's any sideways forces acting on the car, such as in a turn, the rear end of the car is going to swing sideways, toward the outside of the turn, and it's going to swing hard. Even when you're driving straight, the tilt of a crowned road or even poor wheel alignment can be enough to pull the rear wheels towards the gutters---or towards parked cars.

In the worst case, you can be driving along a normal straight road when suddenly you hit a patch of ice and the rear wheels just take off sideways to the right, twisting the car around to point towards the oncoming traffic lanes.

This is what the T-bird has been doing.

Recovery from this kind of skid takes a little bit of skill. You have to take your foot off the gas, but that's not enough because your car is still twisted sideways from its direction of travel, and of course there's no way to turn the rear wheels to recover your traction.

The trick is to turn the front wheels into the skid and keep your foot off the brake so they'll keep rolling. Pretty quickly, they'll pull the rear wheels back into line, and they'll recover their rolling traction. If it happens a little too violently, the rear end may swing past the centerline and fishtail out in the opposite direction, in which case you have to repeat the recovery in the opposite direction.

If you're not used to a skid like that, it's pretty scary, and I've seen people panic and not take their foot off the gas. The rear end can come completely around, maybe even around-and-around.

(If you do this on purpose, it's called "doing doughnuts" and you and your friends can take turns seeing who can go around the most times before running out of room.)

Keeping your foot on the gas is less of a problem in front wheel drive car because (a) many of them have traction control, which essentially takes your foot off the gas for you, (b) the spinning wheels can sometimes claw at the snow hard enough to get some traction, and (c) the rear wheels aren't sliding.

(That's why you can't do doughnuts in a modern front-wheel drive car unless you turn off the traction control...and drive backwards...so I'm told.)

When I was growing up in Chicago, I only had rear-wheel drive cars, so learning how to recover from a skid was just part of learning to drive. After some experimentation and a few years of experience, it just becomes second nature. Veteran snow drivers will feel the skid starting and perform the recovery move dozens of times an hour as a normal part of driving, without even thinking about it.

That used to be me, but as I said, it's been a while. I still know what to do, but it doesn't come as naturally as it once did. My reactions are blunted by 15 years of front-wheel drive, 10 of them with traction control. I haven't hit anything, but driving in the snow takes a lot more care now.