2025, Automotive, Mysteries, Seasons

Redundancies

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The first car that I owned was a 1968 Datsun 510.  I bought it used when I lived in Northfield – in 1977 – for a whooping $400.  It had some rust but ran pretty well.  The owner wouldn’t sell it to me until we test drove it; I don’t think he believed I could drive a stick. 

Back then inexpensive cars didn’t do anything special for you.  No pings to tell you that you haven’t turned off the lights, no messages that your oil life is down to 15%, no back-up cameras, no seat warmers, and certainly no notifications that your tire air pressure is getting low.

Even though my current car is 11 years old, I bought it new from a dealership so I can still take it in when the air pressure light goes on, usually after the first cold snap of each fall/winter. They check the tires and fill any that are low.  No charge for this.  A couple of years ago, a new warning blinked at me, on a cold cold morning in January – a TPMS warning.  I looked it up in the manual and online – Tire Pressure Monitoring System.  Didn’t I already have that?

When I had the car’s check-up in April (right before I drove to Indy for the eclipse), I asked the mechanics to look at it – they said they took care of it.  Unfortunately, when the got cold in December, the light came back on.  I ignored it for a couple of weeks, it warmed up and the light turned off.  When I had the oil changed in January, I asked them to look at it again.  Turns out there are FOUR of these sensors and they not only go wonky fairly often but they run on batteries, so eventually the batteries run down.  They had fixed one of these sensors in April, but now there were two more sensors acting up.  The reality is that they are actually a built-in redundancy, a back-up to the main system, which works just fine.  If the light was bothering me, I could cough up $120 each to have them adjusted and get new batteries for them.  If I wait until the next time I need new tires, it will be a lot less.  So, since the warning isn’t even accurate, I decided to ignore it.  Then when it warmed up… the light went off again.  Sigh. 

Hopefully it won’t come on again until it gets really cold again.

Do you have any “back-ups”, just in case…….

30 thoughts on “Redundancies”

  1. We recently adopted an emergency backup dog. He is 3 months old. His name is Bruno. He is not yet housebroken. Last night, he took over Ernie’s place on my hip. Poor Ernie had to sleep next to Linda’s feet. There might be some fallout from this. Ernie won’t look at me this morning.

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    3. When we obtained our puppy, Phoebe, during the last months of our Bootsy’s life, she was not pleased. I wish I could post a picture of the two of them together. Bootsy had a look of, “Someone please do something with this puppy! I did not ask for this.” There was fall out.

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  2. $120/tire is cheap.
    I had one replaced this summer at a Nissan dealership. $210.
    And the low tire light is back on again!
    Duct tape repaired it.

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    1. Actually, the $120 was not for the tire it was for fixing the sensor. So just to fix those two sensors would’ve been $240. If I wait until I buy new tires then to fix the sensors will only be $60 each because they’ll already be in there dealing with the tires.

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  3. Our TPMS light went on in the extreme cold in our Honda van, and now it is off. Son had all of the batteries replaced on the tires of his Subaru in February for the same reason.

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    1. I had never seen that light come on before and it really scared me as we were driving north on I 29 near Summit, SD in February in brutal cold at the top of the Buffalo Ridge where there are no services and the weather is usually vile. I envidioned us being stranded in Milbank. SD. Once we turned west in Fargo uut of the north wind, the light went off.

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  4. Don’t the tires lose pressure when it’s very cold? I’ve had the same light come on, and when I’ve asked about it I’ve been told that the tires lose pressure in the cold but they warm up slightly with the friction from the road and the light will go off. Sometimes you might have to add air. I just do this myself, but I’m never sure I’m getting the right amount in. I have overfilled the tires. I agree that those sensors are wonky. The last time I had my car in at a Honda dealer, the tire light kept coming on. I taught myself how to clear the light and recalibrate.

    I have an old, 4-cup Mr. Coffee coffee maker in case I need one. You never know. I’m not supposed to be drinking coffee anymore, but I cling to my coffee maker(s). I also have a back-up Melitta cone or three or four that I won’t part with.

    I have back-up knitting or crocheting projects that I can turn to when I finish one or get to a point where I can’t go on without instruction.

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    2. Our tire light comes on in the fall when it’s getting colder. We now have a little air “pump” Husband found online, plugs into the cigarette lighter, and “we” can test the tires, see who needs air, then fill it (or them). Have even used it while on the road..

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    3. You are correct. The tires lose pressure because when it gets very cold, the air compresses. I don’t know if those are the scientific terms. That’s why I know that these silly sensor lights are redundant because every fall or early winter (without fail) since I’ve owned this car, the regular dashboard light comes on saying check tire pressure. I take it into the dealership – they check, they add a little bit and then I’m good to go until the next fall/winter.

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  5. flashlights, solar lamps, portable weather radio, a storeroom usually well stocked with food and wine, and lots of camping gear in the garage in case the apocalypse comes and the electrical grid is destroyed and we all have to live off the land. No weapons other than knives, saws, hatchets, etc., but I don’t care much for guns, plus we live in a relative safe and sane place.

    Chris in Owatonna

    PS– and always lots of golf balls in the golf bag!

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  6. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    Right now I have a back up car in the garage since Lou no longer drives. I have not yet decided what to do with it )2015 Honda Pilot) but it probably would sell well as a used car. Lou loved driving that car. He has lost so much that he loved in the last year, I just cannot yet bring myself to sell it. I also have most of the stuff Chris mentioned, except camping equipment–my camping days are over even in an apocalypse. I do have water set aside though. My primary concern is storms of increasing frequency and strength that can taint public water supplies, so I always have a few gallons stored away. Then I refill them yearly (I am talking 8-10 gallons, not the kinds of large supplies the doomsday preppers have). Right now I have back up coffee, too because coffee prices are rising, so I put in a supply while it was cheaper.

    Can we get a back up of sanity? Maybe I should stock up on anti-depressants? Right now I find the political atmosphere pretty toxic and anxiety-producing. I am not watching or listening to much news, but the big issues leak through.

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  8. – A pantry shelf of canned goods, a freezer with back up pizzas, meats, and last summer’s tomatoes to make sauce from (ooh, should thaw some again).
    – Library shelves full of unread (or already read) books.
    – A half dozen 500- or 1000-picec puzzles.
    – Lots of piano music that I should get out and see if I can still play…

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  9. We have at least 25 packages of Rancho Gordo beans, because, well, they are good and you never know when it may be hard to get to the grocery store.

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  10. Hey–
    I always have a plan B. Probably a C and D too. I think about that sometimes; where have I come up with this MO. Some is theater and ‘The show must go on’, and some is farming and knowing some of those jobs can’t wait and have to be finished. Knowing when to let it go is the hard part.

    I think about the Super Bowl and other high visibility events. Their productions always talk about redundancy. It might be the host wearing 2 microphones, it might be two digital control lines. And most concerts or big shows carry a back up console with an A/B switch, the back up console following along and if something goes wrong, jump right onto the second.
    It’s harder in farming. There isn’t an ‘alternate crop’ growing if the first one gets hailed out. But there is crop insurance. And it’s why we shouldn’t put all our eggs in the one basket, because I have dropped that basket more than once.

    Speaking of which, egg production is up! I got 17 yesterday.

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  11. I had a rice cooker that I was using a lot, and then it failed during the pandemic. There were a couple of years when there were no Fix-It Clinics, and since I couldn’t repair that one immediately, I bought a second, larger one from someone on Facebook Marketplace. I had the original one fixed when the clinics came back. I also picked up a mini rice cooker that someone put out on the curb for free. I want to make sure I always have at least one that works. I also have a backup coffeemaker. Plus, I have a French press so if the power goes out I can use that to make coffee.

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    1. We received a rice cooker as a Christmas gift the first year we were married (1980). We used it, in Taiwan (where we ate a LOT of rice) until about 2012, when it finally died. Then we bought a larger Tatung (Taiwan brand), which we brought to Michigan when we retired. I’m not too worried about it “going out”, though, because from the instructions on the back of a bag of rice (which I followed until we got that first rice cooker), I learned how to make rice on the stovetop. Something about “18 minutes and DON’T PEEK).

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      1. I always made rice on the stove top until the Taiwanese lady told me that the rice cooker makes it so easy. It took me another year or two to get one but now that is my go to.

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  12. I recently had to have the engine rebuilt in Steve’s Subaru after my daughter blew it up. This is her fourth engine that she has blown up so sometimes even the warning lights don’t work when the guy at the shop asked me if the warning lights were on I told him that they were always on and had been on since the first day I owned the car I go along with Bill I use black electrical tape rather than duct tape.

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    1. at Costco, I was disappointed a couple years ago when they discontinued Liton‘s teabags about two or three months ago they re-introduced the teabags and I immediately bought two packages just to let them know that I appreciated them bringing them back. I was surprised that the price went from 1199 to 999 and thought this might be the first item where there had been a price reduction in the last couple years then I went out to the Carver store and saw that at that store. They were 1199 so I went back to my Eden Prairie store and bought another package for 999 yesterday. I was there and they had the mark down to 479 and I bought 12 cases initially because I had a delivery that I had to make that would take up part of the car, but on my way back home to drop off to 12 cases I thought I might as well stop into the store and pick up the remaining stock and so I got 26 more so I now have 38 cases of Lipton’s tea and I each of those has three packages and I go through one package a week so you can do the math I believe that is a two year supply of back up all for $150

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