What an ubelievable conclusion to the 2008 F1 season! Such an incredible race to finish off the year. I’m truly glad that I followed every race this season and I feel so lucky that I got to watch one of the races in person. Congrats to Lewis and McLaren for winning the World Championships. I’ve got to get myself to another race next year : )

- Spore: it’s finally launching on Sunday. I worry that my slightly old PC won’t be up to the task of running it well. Will Wright’s games have always been creative, but have never been programmed in such a way that makes them run well on most machines. Blizzard on the other hand has always done a great job of writing amazing code, but that’s neither here nor there.

- iRacing.com: It’s a little unusual to do a subscription racing game, but with the Papyrus cred, I’m willing to give it a try. Some of the things I’ve read on rec.autos.simulators are indicative of non-pay services (asshats overdriving and causing incidents). I would have hoped a subscription service would get rid of those people.

- Madden 09: I’ve been wanting to play against my friend in LA but it’s been surprisingly difficult. Once you accept an invite it just says the game no longer exists. We think it’s a firewalling issue, which is retarded. Shouldn’t the damn thing just work? So we’ll be trying to debug that this weekend.

Oh yeah, last weekend we walked 8 miles out to the salt ponds of the bay. It was completely unplanned, just decided we’d go out the door and go for a walk. It was awesome. “There and back again…” as they say.

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It turns out that Mercedes maintenance at the dealer is extremely expensive. We are talking $300-$800 for regular service. This is not counting the “recommendations” that your service advisor is likely to make. The most common “recommendations” are usually along the lines of replacing brake pads and rotors before they actually need to be replaced. I can’t believe they pull that crap on cars that have electronic sensors checking for brake wear! Ah well, it’s an unfortunate reality that car dealerships are some of the most dishonest businesses in America. I consider it to be somewhat of a blessing when you aren’t being lied to at a dealership and also a blessing for every automotive moment that you don’t have to go to a dealership.
For those that aren’t mechanically inclined, the best thing to do for major routine service is to find a good independent mechanic. For those that want to get their hands dirty, there are some things you can do. It turns out that Mercedes still makes something called the Workshop Information System. These are available in Europe, I’m guessing another system is used in the US. If you go on ebay and search for “Mercedes WIS”, you should find a bunch of sellers in the UK. I haven’t gotten my hands on one yet, but when I do I’m hoping to find a factory service manual. If it’s anything like the ones that Toyota puts together, it basically details every procedure for maintenance/tear down/rebuild of every part of the vehicle.

Another useful tool is the Mityvac 7201 Fluid Evacuator. Turns out the Mercedes engines don’t really have a dipstick. You check the oil using an electronic system… The “fake” dipstick is actually used to remove oil from the engine, and that’s where the Mityvac comes in. You just pump up the Mityvac and use it to suction the oil out of the engine. Sure, you can drain the oil the old fashioned way, but why bother… the Mityvac can also be used to bleed brakes, flush transmission fluid, or any other fluid in the car.

As for the strange little Mercedes oil filter, those are available online or at your MB dealer’s parts counter. It’s an odd little filter with 4 O-rings, but there’s nothing to changing one.