We recently noticed some new grinding sounds coming from our 2006 Pontiac Vibe when you used the brakes first thing in the morning. The first thing I thought was “Oh Crap.”. The second thing I thought was “Damn, I haven’t done anything with the brakes yet on this car.”.

That’s right folks, our 2006 Pontiac Vibe was over 85,000km on the factory brake pads and rotors. Now, admittedly, we do a lot of highway driving and very little in the way of stop and go driving. Even so, I figured that over 85,000km was a little much for a car to go on factory pads and rotors. We got the car into our local garage for them to take a look and let us know what the damage was going to be.

“There’s nothing wrong with your brakes.”

Yup, that’s what the mechanic said to The Boss. He mentioned that there were a few “hot spots” on the rotors that he was going to grind down but otherwise the fronts still had about 50% and the rears were still about 60%. Even the mechanic was very surprised when he realized these were the stock factory brake pads and rotors.

I really can’t complain about our 2006 Pontiac Vibe. We have only had to pay for a set of winter tires, oil changes and tire rotations. I think we’re in for a new set of all-seasons next spring but the car will be near 90,000km by then and again, I can’t complain about getting that much mileage out of a set of stock factory tires or a set of pads and rotors!

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We’ve had our 2006 Pontiac Vibe for about two and a half years now and we recently passed 80,000km (just shy of 50,000 miles). Overall the car has been working well for us. We’ve had no mechanical issues with the car and the only real cost has been regular oil changes. I think we’re soon due for a brake job though. We still have the original all-seasons on the car after 80,000km but we’ve put winter tires on for two of the three winters the car has gone through. Even with winters, the all-seasons tires still have around 55,000km.

Our average fuel consumption for 2008 is currently at 8.34L/100km (~ 28 MPG). This isn’t very good in my opinion but it does include winter driving with the snow tires on. In the winter with the snow tires, we’re getting around 9.0L/100km (~ 26.5 MPG). In the summer months we’re down around 7.5L/100km (~ 31.4 MPG) which is a little better. It’s interesting because the US DoE has the 2006 Pontiac Vibe at 31 MPG (7.6L/100km) for highway with their readjusted numbers. My problem still stems from the fact this car was rated at 34 MPG (6.9L/100km) for highway when we bought it. The best fuel economy I’ve ever achieved in that car was a one-off 6.7L/100km (~ 35.1 MPG). That was when we were driving on secondary roads averaging 90km/h (~55 MPH), true “highway” driving. I also annoyed the snot our of The Boss on this drive as I was putting into practice some of the driving techniques I’ve learned from reading ecomodder.com.

With some driving style modifications, I think this car should be able to do consistently in the 6.8L/100km to 7.0L/100km range in the summer. It’s very noticeable though when you turn on the AC as the little 1.8L engine has to rev higher to deal with the added load. This definitely contributes to worse fuel economy. One thing to keep in mind is that the defrost settings on this car also turn on the AC.

One other gripe about the car is that there is a very thin layer of paint. It seems that everything causes a small paint chip. I think if you sneezed while standing within 10 feet of the car it would get a paint chip. To try and keep the rust at bay, I bought one of those colour matched paint pens from the dealership and every couple months I have to dab a few more chips. Nothing major but it’s one maintenance annoyance I could do without.

We’re probably going to keep this car for many more years. It will probably get relegated to the “second car” in a few years as it’s not quite big enough for a growing family.

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We have a Polaris high efficiency gas hot water tank that provides both our domestic hot water and also hot water for heating our house. This is a very cost effective way to heat both the water and the house. As long as it is working.

Ours hasn’t been working since Sunday. We don’t actually own the tank because the previous owner of the house was renting it so now we rent it. I’m starting to think this is a good thing because this is the second time this year (yeah, since January) that we have been without hot water. Now that it’s almost June, it’s not such a big deal but back in January it was a huge problem since this heats our house. I can deal with a day or so of ice cold showers.

On Monday we had a Direct Energy (that’s who we rent the tank from) technician come to take a look at the unit. I already had a decent idea as to what was going wrong because the Polaris book has a couple really good troubleshooting flow charts. The unit also has an error LED that flashes X number of times to indicate the problem. The technician followed the same process I did and ended up ordering the part that appeared to be required.

Now, this is where Direct Energy is sort of strange in how they operate. They don’t carry parts. This makes sense because they can’t possible carry everything but it means you have to wait for a part to be delivered to you. A courier showed up just after supper with the new part so I called Direct Energy back and got them to send the tech back Monday evening. He came and installed the part only to have the tank still not work. After trying a number of things, he called it a night and ordered another part.

Now I’m looking at the third part to be replaced on the unit in about 6 months. The unit itself was only installed almost exactly 2 years ago.

The new part arrived yesterday evening but they couldn’t get anyone out here until Wednesday afternoon so now I’m stuck waiting to see if this part is the one that was busted. Fantastic. I like the Polaris tank and when it works, it’s quite an inexpensive way to heat both domestic hot water and provide home heating. The part I don’t like is I’m hearing from the Direct Energy technician that a bunch of other people in Kemptville are replacing units like this because they are breaking down a lot.

We’ll see how long it runs for once it is fixed. Maybe it will soon be time to replace the Polaris gas hot water heater with something else. *shudder* I’m not looking forward to the cost of switching to a “real” furnace.

Update: Yippee! We have hot water again! Oh, and now I know why I still rent this tank, even if it does cause me inconvenience - I don’t have to pay over $1200 for the new part that was just replaced and I don’t have to pay for the close to 5 hours of labour to get this all up and running again. Let’s see. About $35 a month to rent the unit works out to about 35 months to pay for just for this part. Direct Energy might be losing money on this one.

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So we decided to buy a few “cheaper” Fuzzi Bunz like diapers called Pocket Change Diapers from Montana’s Diaper Store. They are new on the market and actually come with both a terry AND a hemp insert and only for $17.95US. It’s a great deal so we (aka I) decided to buy 6 of these diapers. When they arrived I wasn’t overly impressed with how they went on our baby, they just didn’t seem to snap on as easily as the Fuzzi Bunz but we slowly warmed up to them and learned the knack of proper diaper placement. Now the inserts also took some warming up to, unlike my Jamtots hemp/cotton inserts, the hemp inserts that came with the Pocket Change diapers took almost 2 months of washing before they would even soak liquid up the back of the insert. This of course resulted in some leaks and a saturated bum for our baby.. yuck!

Anyways, my first disappointment came when the red diaper consistently leaked around the legs. I contacted the owner of the store (in freaking Montana…), and after some problem solving e-mails she asked me to send the diaper back to her and she would gladly replace it with a new one. I was impressed. I didn’t get around to sending it immediately and then I went away on some holidays. When I got back I noticed that one of the other diapers had lost its elastic in the back and contacted her again, she again asked me to send the diaper back (since it had only been 2 months) and she would gladly replace it… awesome. That same day another one lost its elastic. Long story short, I ended up sending back 3 of the 6 diapers I bought from them and it cost me $6.20CAN shipping to return them.

So, the customer service at Montana’s Diaper Store is just fantastic but the Pocket Change Diapers in my opinion are certainly… just ok.

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We’ve had our Pontiac Vibe for a little over a month now and overall it’s a pretty decent car. It’s quite fun to drive, especially the nifty kick down button that turns off the over drive on the automatic. That little button makes it a lot easier to pass since you don’t have to do the typically gas pedal mash to try and force the transmission to kick down. When the engine is running in the higher RPM range (over about 4500), it has a decent amount of pull.

Other great features are the huge glove box (big enough for a box a Kleenex and a stack of maps in addition to the owner’s manual!), the huge center console storage box and the various other storage compartments scattered around the car. For a car this size, they really made the most of every available space by turning it all into storage. Not only that, the upright driving position makes it really easy to get in and out of the car and there is lots of head room, even for guys taller than (6′1″) me.

Some features that make it fun to drive, other than the kick down button I already mentioned, are the rather stiff suspension and the tight steering. I haven’t driven a lot of small cars but the Pontiac Vibe handles quite well in my opinion. It corners well and doesn’t have too much body roll which keeps it reasonably flat on those highway on/off ramps. The Vibe also has a very small turning radius. I still laugh every time I manouver that car into a small space since I’ve been driving a full sized truck for the last 5 years. A small turning radius isn’t something I’m used to.

Now there is one thing that I would definitely add, a telescoping steering wheel. If you have long legs like me, you’ll end up putting the seat back. The problem with that is you then end up quite far away from the steering wheel. Even with the seat in an upright position, I still have my arms almost completely straight if I want to be able to driving in the standard 10 and 2 position. I can’t drive that way for a long period as it is simply too uncomfortable. A telescoping steering wheel would at least allow me to pull the wheel an inch closer making for a much more comfortable position.

Other interior oddities are the front cup holders (for some reason they are different sizes), the door “arm rest” and console are quite low (meaning they are useless as, well, arm rests) and the radio volume and tuning knobs can be easily confused in the dark when driving.

The rear storage area (trunk?) is a decent size and the rear seats can be folded to provide a huge space. The only gripe I have about the space is the hard plastic floor surface. I’m sure there is a good reason to have it now and then but I’ve yet to find a good reason. We ended up having to buy the rear floor mat because everything you put back there would be constantly sliding around. I guess we could have opted for the cargo net but even having a jug of washer fluid back there was enough to drive us bonkers after only a couple minutes driving.

The last comment I have is on the gauges. They are very bright and super easy to read. The gauges themselves are sunk in quite a bit which makes it difficult for your passenger to sneak a peek at your current speed. There is one indicator light on the Pontiac Vibe that I really don’t understand. It is the “tail lights on” indicator. For some reason the car designers decided it was necessary to inform the driver when their tail lights were on. Basically, this indicator is on all the time when your head lights are on. Personally, I would hope that my tail lights were on and I don’t think it’s necessary to have an indicator light telling me this fact.

One last thing some people might be interested in is the gas mileage. We drive the car on the highway a lot, probably 80% of our driving. After almost 5000km in cold January and February we are averaging about 9.0L/100km. I’m not overly impressed by that number at the moment but if that is the worst we get, I’m going to be quite happy. I’m going to be tracking my gas consumption for a while so hopefully it will get better when the temperatures get back above freezing. Stay tuned for more.

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So it looks like DWI boy is a slight moron and Firegirl is getting dumber by the minute. What the heck are you thinking by not contributing even some small token amount of work on building a shellter? Yes it may be a lot of energy to expend but look at what happened to Firegirl, she got really sick! That’s one hellvua way to drain your energy.

So DWI boy is only a slight moron because he was at least smart enough to go sleep under the shelter he didn’t help build. Of course, he’s dumb as a post since he’ll most likely be the first one voted out if that team ever loses immunity.

Oh yeah, so the vote. Really I think that was a pitty vote more than anything. Had she (Tanya?) been able to actually eat stuff without being sick, she would have never been considered for the vote. Too bad. She was the best looking one on that team. Swimmer chick needs to open up. Unfortunately she’s not dealing with logical level headed military types, she’s dealing with dumbass civillians. They want to “get to know her” and all that crap.

Anyhoo, enough analysis of what the producers want us to see.

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