Car Talk

[unixronin]

The car now has new front brakes.  Surprisingly, the rotors weren't scored -- probably because, surprisingly, the stock disc pads were bonded, not riveted.  This is a good thing, because somehow, at some point, both pad wear indicators had been bent back to the extent that the disc pad backing plates would have contacted the rotors before the wear indicators did.  (At which point, of course, we would have found ourselves suddenly sans brakes.)  Had a pleasant chat with the mechanic about the differences between the base Intrepid and the R/T while he did the work, and also got the first really good look I've had at the suspension.  It's a big departure from the GM suspensions I'm used to looking at.  There are, for instance, no front control-arms -- just two forged links locating the bottom end of the MacPherson strut.  (The rear is similar.)  And the roll bars don't attach to the steering knuckle or the links at all -- they hang on pushrods that act on the struts.  It's a nice design -- I'll bet it gets the unsprung weight and the friction WAY down compared with GM's heavy stamped control arms and roll bar attached via rubber bushings to the lower control arm.

I'd intended to get the car re-inspected at the same time, but found I didn't have the current registration certificate with me.  Fortunately, I was able to find where on my desk it had disappeared to, just as I was beginning to think we'd have to get a replacement registration slip from DMV.  We still need to go to DMV, though, because I discovered that in all the chaos of jobhunting and assorted impending job prospects over the past year, we managed to overlook getting a new title issued without the credit union as a lienholder (it's exactly a year ago yesterday that they signed off on the title).