greetings, it has been too long
 

Hi, I haven't been here in a long time, but I'm back. I recently acquired a 2004 matrix with a 5 speed and have been thinking about some details of my driving and remembered you guys. Hope the Cow and Jay (and many others) are still around.

Welcome back! Jay and I and a lot of the others are still here but not as active as we used to be.

Well you're more active that I have been. I was concerned when I typed in gassaver and ended up here. I like a small tight forum, I'm registered at EM, but meh. I think I came back here for a week ,but some troll seemed to be doing about 1/3 of all posting. Glad to see he drifted away (or ate ban hammer). I've been getting my foruming in at a small home beer brewing forum for the last few years. I must say, I like a forum with 5-10 daily posters.

Cow, was it you who drove a scion and worked on cape? I remember some how that came up about someone. I was living in new Bedford at the time so it was memorable. I'm now out in the greater Greenfield area between the woods and a cow farm.

My near gas saving plans:
I never bought a SG, and now I have a fancy phone in my pocket with blue tooth... So considering that direction. When I left here the kiwi had just come out but were not tested and true.
I'm planning a simple injector kill switch. I've been doing a lot of key turning. I don't like having the instrument panel go dead, also a button on the shifter will get used more.

So this post should have landed in a different sub forum, so anyone with the power of mod feel free.

Yeah, small forums are really nice.

I think you're thinking of JanGeo with the Scion. I daily drive my Buick and I work near Worcester. Greenfield would still be quite a hike for catching an after-work beer.

These days it's definitely worth considering the bluetooth OBDII + smartphone thing instead of the SG, UG, etc. The price is a fraction of any of those and there's so much more power even just using the free version of the most popular app, Torque...not to mention the inexpensive paid version and the other apps. Even people who don't own a smartphone can get a brand new one for chump change (if they wait for the right sale) or a used one, not bother with phone service for it, and just use it with OBDII for more power and be way under the SG/UG budget. I have one and it's great, though I don't get to use it often since I DD the Buick.

Another thing you can do with it is use it with a dashcam app that records video. Some support bluetooth OBDII and can graph data right over the video, I think.

I don't go by Worcester much anymore. I've got family on the cape, so I head east now and then, but I take rout 2 now (woo 55 zone! I may still be going 15mph slower than everyone, but it feels more acceptable).

The SG's seem pretty weak now that you can get a blue tooth obdii and a tablet for about the same price. And the SGs can't do much data logging, I don't know what the apps do, but the hardware can clearly handle a lot. I still need to read more reviews on the blue tooth plugs to see if the $40 ones are better than the $10 ones.

I've got some work to do on my bump starting. I've been just dumping the clutch into fith. That seems smooth enough while going 30-40 like I mostly do, but I could do better.

Is jangeo still around at all?

Be sure to post if you find that the $40 ones really do have anything special going for them. What I'd really like is something that can access ABS, SRS, and other codes that standard OBDII doesn't carry but comes through the OBDII port. I doubt those are down to $40 yet.

Definitely work on that bump starting. Just dumping the clutch and leaving it like that sounds barbaric. Clutch pedal comes up halfway then immediately back down to the floor again, like you were waiting at a red light and thought it was going to turn green but you were wrong. It just kicks the engine over a little bit and the engine starts itself.

I don't think JanGeo has posted lately.