Headlights Dim about 10% per Year

SYLVANIA asked me to review their headlight replacement bulbs.

Used their search engine to find the bulb number -1999 Jetta = #9004 – and they arrived in the mail.

Installing the new one required no tools, pop in and out.

Headlights dim by about 10% per year,
so 3 years in, and 1/3 of the brightness is gone

Built a test lab in my yard.

The car is 7 feet away, CL is the centre of the headlight, and I’m trying to measure the spread sideways, since something that darts usually comes from the side, not the front.

But the results are not translating in the photo, at all.

Plus I forgot to clean the headlights (despite blogging a cheap & fast solution on Monday.)

Through the grime though, the new lights are noticeably brighter, and woah, I’m driving in dim conditions for no reason.

Friendly reminder to replace your lights, because there’s dark times ahead guys.

The reason to choose SYLVANIA over another brand can be explained in 5 words: You’re probably already using them. Because SYLVANIA supplies most of the auto manufactures.  See my old bulb in the top photo? There’s a good chance that’s the factory original.

SYLVANIA SilverStar ULTRA Headlights
$60-ish

Don’t cheap out on a most essential part of driving – seeing.

Available at Canadian Tire

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This post has been brought to you by SYLVANIA Headlights.

 

 

The ‘Rule of Thumb’ for WiFi Range

An average router’s signal will travel:

– 150 ft inside a structure (eg. your home)
– 300 ft outside

Even if you’re living in the centre of a barren, 1,000 foot field (why are you doing that?), still password protect your WiFi (your SSID) using WPA2.

A good password looks like this:
^NKglYA%]tckcM?wG7?r6nFp!

And change your router password, because when was the last time you did.

 

 

How to Start & Stop a Fire

Saturday was beautiful weather, so my neighbour (you’ve met before) and I decided we needed a fire, which he started.

Efficiently.

As IF this isn’t album cover art.

That’s the starting part, now comes the stopping part.

He was so calm, there was no flinching.

Then we got back in the car and went home, because this never happened in our front yards.

 

 

Dispelling Fears about Car Hacking

Real brief: the problem is cars operate on the CAN bus network, which was designed in the 1980s, when the internet didn’t exist. Learn about CAN here.

Speaking with Chris Valasek, physical access is still required to hack the car. For now. (I’d try coming in via Bluetooth.)

Read it online at Autonet.

Favourite line:

That’s how car hacking works: the system doesn’t ask where the message came from or who sent it, it just accepts and executes it.

Plus the ending, because it’s true.

To attack, it’d be more efficient to roll that newspaper into a baton, than go after the target’s car.

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Back to ‘Keri on Driving’ – Index

Blog tag = auto security