Test Driving a Boat
Test Driving a Boat
If you think you’ve found the boat of your dreams, it’s time to test it. Testing your boat is more than just taking it for a test drive around the harbor. You should look at everything closely, as a professional boat tester would.
Sometimes, it can be hard to tell a top quality boat from one that may have problems later on. To an untrained eye, both can look good on the surface. When you start to break everything down and give it a careful inspection, you’ll be able to tell a great boat from a not-so-great boat.
By opening up all doors and access plates, you can get great insight on the the construction of the boat. You should also stick your head into the anchor locker of any boat you are considering to buy, as if they’ve cut any corners you’ll normally be able to see it here.
Looking into the anchor locker also lets you look at the hull to deck joint. If there is light coming from through, or if the fiberglass around the joint can be seen through, it normally means the boat has poor construction.
When you buy a boat, you should put it through a rigorous visual inspection. It’s also equally important to conduct a vigorous test on the water as well. A private seller or dealer will normally want to stack the deck, ensuring that the boat will perform well.
Normally, this involves a near empty gas tank, no gear or extra passengers, and keeping the boat in sheltered water. Therefore, it’s up to you to insist on a more realistic test. Think of the test as an actual day out on the water, and you’ll find out if the boat is indeed something you should spend your money on.
During your water testing, you should determine if the boat performs well and meets all of your expectations. You should determine if the boat travels at the right speeds, and whether or not it is capable of doing everything that you plan to do with it after you buy it.
When test driving the boat, you should put it through all paces in open water, cutting waves at all angles. If you plan to test a saltwater boat, you should bring along a 5 gallon bucket and try throwing some water onboard. Any boat you plan to use offshore should quickly shed water through the scuppers. Some boats will pool water in the bow and drain slowly – which can be very dangerous in rough waters.
If a seller or dealer balks at the mention of any requests you have, simply find yourself another dealer or another boat. There are plenty of great quality boats available, ranging in prices. Make sure to check everything very carefully before you make any decisions.
Test Driving a Boat / Harry Ayala
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How to survive with General Motors
How to survive with General Motors
Stocks of new cars out of factory piling in Europe, Asia, and America is a clear sign of bursting economy now flattened like ocean’s surf. End users are more concerned about daily utilities than to look for new cars. There is not enough space with the dealers to accommodate and sell these new vehicles to the end users. Who is to blame for this turmoil, leaders or the mass communications which filled our daily lives with sweet dreams. It’s 6AM and my radio is tuned to early morning news with a cup of hot coffee in my dash coffee holder. Gas prices are lower than yesterday, it certainly brightens my working spirit. Today hopefully I will have chance to hear more good news, so I did not turn the channel to Old classics of Tina Turner.
Oh not again, I can see that my manager’s face is tense and since I joined GM as client services manager the sales is not going up. It does not matter what i do but the customers are not falling for the glamour of big chevys. The majority is already shifted to small compacts either Made in Korea OR Made in Japan. I had this impression throughout my childhood that these tiny toys like corolla and sunny are made of paper and will be a bad choice.
And later when I graduated from university and got a job with local car dealer, the competition with these paper toys became my worst nightmare. I was badly beaten in price, fuel efficiency and easy maintenance from these auto makers from across the ocean. Look here the old chevys from 1960′s have not realized that the glamour will not attract wise customers of today. in 2007 Toyota has produced more vehicles than any other auto maker. This is a fact that these compact luxurious cars are seen in every corner of the world. Even in Europe I had a chance to spend a warm Christmas on Cyprus island off the cost of Mediterranean. To my curiosity more than 60% of all autos were made in Japan. From a restaurant owner near the beach, I asked that what is wrong with the US autos. And he looked sharply towards me saying that the US made models are only for Americans. Hmmmm.
I guess it has a lot of meanings, because I can also feel it but I can’t say it. So here we are ending with a most selling brand Prius, introduced 10 years before this industrial turmoil. And the electric vehicles are shortly coming in the market. Also, Hondo is vigorously competing by introducing fuel efficient Hybrids like insight. Honda has a much lower price tag of Japanese Yen 1,890,000 on the road. I just read a rotary engine run on hydrogen, also by a Japanese manufacturer Mazda which made an advance sale of these vehicles to Norway. The fuel is clean energy and Kingdom of Norway has realized the importance of clean environment.
So after all it is not a major shift in US politics but this era will be a major shift in our living habits and the way we use combustible and non-combustible materials to our daily use. Are my job days numbered or are the US auto industry days numbered is a 24B$ question under debate nowadays. Will the US auto producers introduce more environment friendly autos. This downfall will take an upstream by the mass opinion in the recent months. Fingers crossed for billions of future.
How to survive with General Motors / Matthew
Nexuss International is a Japanese based used and new car dealer to import cars from Japan and also selling Japanese auction cars to customers.
Benefits and Drawbacks of Hybrid Electric Cars
Benefits and Drawbacks of Hybrid Electric Cars
If you just listen to the car manufacturers, hybrid electric cars are the best and innovative invention since slice bread. Although, there many reasons to purchase an electric car, it is of great help to have the understanding of its benefits and drawbacks of hybrid electric cars and in owning these new “green vehicles.
Benefits of hybrid electric cars are normally fuel efficiency because they are composed of two motors, a gasoline motor and an electric powered motor. It is also equipped with special system to catch braking energy and store it on an onboard battery.
The main reason for two motors is both the strength and weakness of the two types. Distinctively, electric motors are not energy during idle times, they turn off and utilizes lesser at low speeds compared to gas motors. On the other hand, gas motors function better at high speeds and can generate more power for a specified motor weight. This simplifies, that in rush hours stop and go driving, electric motors work great and additionally, it helps in reducing smog levels because it does not produce any toxic exhaust. At higher speeds, typically above 40mph, the gas motor sets in and gives that bouncing feel making car owners go forward on driving on highway.
Another benefits of hybrid electric cars are the point for having gas motor, it charges the battery while the engine is on and is running. There are cases of electric car owners that have been stranded with just out extension cord of an outlet. Hybrid owners can neglect this annoyance because the gas motors starts automatically in replacement when the battery gets low and then goes forward to charge the battery, without the need to be plugged into the outlet.
On the contrary, drawbacks of hybrid electric cars are complex and expensive. It contains two motors and ancillary systems to handle them, a heavy battery and a regeneration system that will be used to generate electricity during breaking.
All of the systems need to work together, that is adding complexity, making it one of the drawbacks of hybrid electric cars. Although an ordinary car, as controlled by computers are getting more reliable, but they still suffer from inevitable failures. As, expect owners of hybrid cars have more time in repair shops and pay larger bills.
Indeed, benefits of hybrid electric cars include being the most gasoline efficient, getting 48 to 60mpg. It is only about 20% to 35% better than a gasoline powered vehicle. Let’s take Honda Civic for instance that gets 36mpg. When comparing prices, the hybrid costs from the range of $19,000 to $25,000 and the ordinary gas saver car costs $13,000 to$17,000. The justification to buy an electric hybrid car becomes less clear.
So, in calculation of this benefits of hybrid electric cars, the discrepancy in the average annual fuel bills, $405 for a hybrid Honda Insight compared to the $635 for an ordinary Honda Civic means you can never compensate the added initial cost of a hybrid electric car. For the span of ten years, owning a hybrid will just save you only $2,300, much lesser than the cost difference for equipped cars.
These benefits of hybrid electric cars just came from the improvements in aero dynamics, smaller gas engine and weight reduction. As a matter of fact, any car will have considerably better mileage by just reducing the engine size.
In other cases, car manufacturers are producing hybrid vehicles that use added energy as provided by the hybrid systems to cause the vehicle to boost its power, rather than improve the fuel efficiency. Boosting the power may then add as one of the benefits of hybrid electric cars.
Benefits and Drawbacks of Hybrid Electric Cars / Robert Wilson
Robert Wilson has worked with electric cars for several decades, and he feels certain that within ten years electric powered cars will represent the biggest part of the global new car sale.