Jason Crowther’s Blog

Interesting, VW is making pondering a new performance version of the CC (via).  The enhancement is via a new 3 stage turbo that lets you dial in your fuel economy versus performance; nifty idea.  On the low end, Eco Mode gives you 222Hp at 33/27 MPG.  On the high end, Full Power Mode, gets you 313Hp (they didn’t list MPG though; guessing its not so great.)

The interesting part is that the engine itself is still the venerable 2.0L 4 cylinder that I’m totally enjoying in my ‘08 Passat.  For me, 200Hp is more than enough for daily driving; probably too much, actually (I’ve accidentally squawked the tires a few times!)  but, I’d love to see what Full Power Mode feels like.

Some interesting video of the Top Gear guys running a Bugatti Veyron all the way up to its maximum speed of 253 mph.

Interesting facts:

• To safely get up to the top speed they needed a straightaway of 5.5 miles.
• At top speed, the tire lifetime is only 15 minutes.
• No matter on the short tire lifetime, because the fuel runs out at 12 minutes.
• To dissipate the massive amount of heat generated by the 16 cylinder, quad turbo engine, the car has 10 radiators.
• A separate key is needed to put the car into maximum performance mode.

Rich folks get the coolest toys…

A bunch of fun videos regarding VWs this week:

• VW vs. Toyota Soccer
  Top Gear rocks. See the I-Go vs. the Fox.
• V-Dubsrock Part 1
  Hehe. “This amplifier has airbags…” With Nigel Tufnel from This Is Spinal Tap.
• V-Dubsrock Part 2
  Sweet. Can’t have rock and roll with out Slash.

V-Dubsrock is their new promotion where they’re giving away custom VW guitar with special models that include a guitar input for the stereo. Geez, and me with 2 years to go on my current lease.
Bonus video. Its not VW related, but I stumbled on another Top Gear video about Odd Vehicles. This one will really make you giggle.

Phew! Had my court date for that tinted window and license plate cover violation yesterday. After waiting about an hour for my turn to come up it was pretty much a non-event. The judge asked me what I had done about the offending modifications. I said they’d both been removed. He handed me off to the clerk, who in turn handed me off the to bailiff to confirm that the changes had indeed been done.

A quick walk around the car and additional check on my registration and inspection stickers and he said everything looked in order and that I was dismissed. He said I could leave and that I didn’t need to go back into the court house.

Phew, that’s a load off my mind.

Figured it was probably better to get legal faster than worrying about some glue stuck to my window. So, last night, I detinted the front passenger window. This one was a little harder to get started, because the tint was still pretty well affixed at the top of the window (the other window was peeling back just a bit).

I think I figured out the two tricks to removing tint. First, work on strips about 3 inches wide. Any wider than that and the plastic protective layer and the tint layer tend to separate on the edges. Second, pull slow. I’ve found that going slower and not pulling as hard is far more productive than really torquing it off because the glue stays on the tint, rather than getting left on the window.

So, this time through, I spent about 45 minutes removing the tint itself. But I left significantly less gunk on the window. I got about 75% of the gunk off before the bugs started irritating me. My hands were starting to get sore anyway.

I think with one more nights work, I should be able to finish things up. At least the weather has been nice the last few nights, so being outside with iPod music scraping away isn’t so bad.