jonathanwatmough.com

Had an ok kinda day. Talked to a few people. Had one real up. Really nice people looking for a small truck. I like this kind of day. Didn’t sell anything, but met some new friends. This is way better than sitting behind a desk. Did that for 15 years already.
Sold a 4Runner yesterday to some more really good people. So much time spent standing around, but when this car sales job is good, it’s really good. And it’s not always about selling cars.
Miata running great today. I have Radioshack temp probe near the air intake.
Headlights down: Ambient 80oF Intake air 110oF - 130oF
Headlights up : Ambient 80oF Intake air 90oF - 130oF
That sure tells ya that having the headlights up helps the performance. I figure the 10oF difference is from engine heat / radiator. And a cold air intake at ambient would really help the car.
The power loss with intake air >= 120oF is extremely noticeable. Reluctance to rev. Rougher gear shifts etc. Worse than the difference with AC on vs no AC on.
Saw a Scion tC yesterday. Beautiful. Here’s a few pics from my PDA cam. This car is one of the prettiest little cars I’ve ever seen, and the quality inside is great too. I WANT !!!!!



Wasn’t that beautiful !!! $17,3 auto $16,5 manual both with 2.4 engine from Camry.

Just off out for a drive somewhere I think. May go look at PepBoys for the bits to make a cold air intake. The new muffler and Cat (”No muffler for you”) works great as long as it’s not too humid, in which case I seem to lose quite a bit of power. I’d like to get some kind of humidity and temperature sensors on bluetooth, so I can track intake temperatures on my car. That would be pretty cool to have logged on a PDA or something.
I spent the morning playing with my Google AdWords stuff, and my BUY A TOYOTA webpage.
Yesterday was a bust as far as car sales were concerned, but you always look to the future in sales and I have some good leads and appointments.
John’s Log: Supplemental …
Where do you go when you need crazy crap that no one else sells ??? Why RADIO-SHACK of course !! Click here for a wireless thermo-hygrometer !!

Wet thundery Friday in Houston. Had quite a few ups (walkup customers) and wrote up 2 or 3 deals during the day, but no sales. Did manage to sell a SUV late at night from an up though. That was pretty good.
Collecting red 90 in the morning. New door, rebuilt ac, new plugs and wires, and I should be set for the next few months. The bill is gonna be scary though.
Sunday I will try and finish cleaning the wheels, and maybe paint them black. That should recreate the look of those Porsch/Fuchs rims that are black with shiny outside rim.

Ouch !! Rebuild on the a/c needed. All the o-ring seals are trashed so that will be about $150 or so. It’ll be worth it if I can get lots of cold air again.

Image from Wikipaedia

Ouch !! Rebuild on the a/c needed. All the o-ring seals are trashed so that will be about $150 or so. It’ll be worth it if I can get lots of cold air again.

Well red 90 is in for the new door, and new plugs and wires, and an ac evacuate/recharge. Hopefully I will have a cold a/c, dent free, good running car again tomorrow.
I did ‘fess up to washing the engine. General agreement that the wires were trashed. Plugs are probably due anyway seeing as they have 30k miles on them at a guess.
Ironically, I’ll probably keep the car now I have it in better shape. This whole maintenance catchup only really started because I was thinking about selling it, but an on-form miata is still a great car if you can put up with the noise.
My loaner car is a 626 ESv6. Love it, great stereo, leather and the v6 is real nice too. Almost got a chance to test the ABS when someone dodged a puddle right in front of me, but had just enough room to get slowed down enough.
Was thinking about going into work later, but it may be super quiet because it’s raining like hell in Houston just now. I got on at least one deal yesterday, and helped sell a Scion which was pretty cool. I hadn’t actually driven an xA before, but I showed all the same stuff I’d show on a Corolla, then let the customer drive it, and they liked it enough to buy it.

Scion xB - Microbus for the New Generation

I also drove the xB 5-speed, which was like driving a little bus. The xB looks small on the outside, but those alloys are bigger than they look, just like the rest of the car. The inside has loads of space and the pickup is pretty good. The car felt really together and tight, super easy to drive, with a nice crisp feel to the shifter and also the engine response. It’s funny, but I had a big smile on my face for about half an hour after just driving it round the dealership. Owning one would be great.

Well, I think I screwed up at least one plug. Running with a misfire seems to have lead to more misfire. Here’s some information about spark plugs, heat ranges and how good spark plugs can turn bad.
Also, the famous miata drooping idle seems to be related to the misfire. This miata.net article recommends some different plugs and has some user experiences that specifically mention the idle droop.
I’ll have MazMax change the plugs and maybe wires today when I get the door done. Also, Brian is gonna have the a/c evacuated and recharged. Hopefully the air will be properly cold again by the end of today.

Kind of a fun day. Didn’t sell any cars, but had a good time anyway, somehow. The weather was great, pretty hot, but not too hot for once. And fun customers, though they didn’t buy anything.
I got to drive a Tundra. Somehow it’s more fun than Sequoia, especially having that great big bed behind you. Also drove a 4Runner which I love. I think 4Runner is my favourite big truck. It’s more high tech than Sequoia, and rides beautifully, and accelerates smoothly and quietly.
After clocking out, red 90 started up and seemed much more stuttery than usual. It sorted itself out, then started misfiring under load below 3000 rpm. Just a burbly misfire and serious power loss. I pulled into a gas station down highway 6 and opened the hood. At least a couple of plug leads had moved a bit, so pushing those back on fixed the problem. I guess me washing the engine on Sunday might have got some water/steam under there, and pushed the leads out. My dad’s Astra used to do that a lot, so I wasn’t too worried, and nice and easy to fix a problem you’ve seen before.
Working 12-9 tomorrow, so almost like a day off !!!

Just getting ready for sleep and another day tomorrow. My nails are filthy from changing the air filter on red 90 and making a start on cleaning the engine bay up a bit. To some relief, the car started first time after my gentle jetwashing of the engine. It’s not much cleaner but it still runs at least. I used to own a Peugeot 205Gti that hated water like a cat.
Here’s a pic of a silver 205Gti 1.9 :

Mmm, that was a great car. Sadly mine consisted partly of lesser 205 front suspension parts and used to fall apart. One time going over a hump-backed bridge the front passenger side track arm disconnected from the wheel hub letting the wheel come up in the wheel well. That brought me to a stop pretty quick ! It was fixed and running again 3 hours later. Thanks Granty.

After a dreadful Friday and Saturday for me: intense heat, humidity and no cars sold, finally I get a day off. It’s about 7:30am and I’m planning to pretty much just lounge around and try and catch up on my dvd watching. I gained a couple of future potential customers, so I guess it’s not a total bust, but a couple of cars on Friday/Sat would have been nice, especially as just standing upright for 12 hours in 100+ oF heat was pretty hard. My feet hurt. My back hurts. Whine whinge whine etc etc .
Think I’ll go shoot some pictures and try and do a few constructive things today.
Back later…