Driving Pleasure:The Reason for Lack of Articles on this Blog

I've been a litte busy taking a break from writing. During the last month or so I've made the following road trips:

1. KL-IPOH-CAMERON HIGHLANDS (via Simpang Pulai) - KL (via old road to Tapah)
2. Two road trips to Muar in Johor. One of which in a Suzi Swift 1.5 which has amazing cruising ability by allowing us to travel from Tangkak to Seremban R&R in a mere 45 minutes.
3. A trip to Bukit Tinggi
4. KL-PENANG (Batu Ferrenggi) -KL via Simpang Pulai to CAMERON again and down via old road to Tapah -KL.

All in a month or a period of less than 6 weeks.

The driving experience was priceless. Especially the trip to the Highands. The weather was fine on both trips up and down and the Scooby TS was amazing. It's little engine easily hauling its arse up the windy roads to Brinchang and yes, there was a lack of power most of the time but you know that the chassis (on TEIN springs and front and rear strut bars) seems to be optimised for mountainside roads. Driving and attacking mountain roads is an experience that I somehow will never be bored of. I wonder where next?

Oh yeah. Tires. It seems that due to my extensive travels, I happen to run through a set every 8 to 9 months or so. I suppose this fact isn't healthy on my pocket. Hence the fact that I have to run, as some of my friend's put it, 'salesmen' tires. But being 215/45/17, it'll run me close to a thousand Ringgit on those with alignment and labour costs.

On another note. The Impreza 1.6TS which I drive just had its road tax renewed for its forth year. That's Four Years of Subaru ownership. It happened to 'reward' me with a cracked radiator sometime last week. I then had to get it fixed of course. Being a 1.6 normally aspirated engine, the radiator is a single core thin aluminium/plastic top thingy which I gladly upgraded to a used WRX STI radiator with a dual core. It is also an aluminium/plastic top thingy, but at least when or if I need to repair it, its already an uprated piece. The great thing about running a larger core radiator is that it has (obviously) more water, and therefore more cooling capacity. I noticed that on hotter days the engine runs as smooth as it does on most mornings. This is a good thing, as heat is an enemy of making power. It was a repair well worth it.

Why I'm writing this is because cars nowadays have this aluminium/plastic mix for their radiators. In those days, 1980s and below cars came withsolid copper radiators that hardly break after 4-5 years (which they do now). They don't make them in wholly aluminium except for aftermarket ones. The real reason for this is that any part that doesn't fail does not make profits for the manufacturer. In this case, radiator manufacturers. They need this part to fail every 5 years or so to keep them in business. Its a curse that will not go away. It's here to stay.