Obama never said that and it's dishonest to claim that he did. Just like when idiots claim that McCain said he actually wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years. It's dishonest partisan bickering.

Obama's speech can be looked up online, and he cited several examples of conservation along with investing in new technologies in order to move off of oil altogether.

He never claimed that statistic. He claimed that through conservation and investing in new technologies that we can save enough oil to not have to drill anymore.

I've heard one can potentially save 3% on your gas mileage. If you fill up 3x a month at $50, that's potentially $4.50. however, I've also heard that only about 1 in 10 cars have low enough pressure that they'd save that 3%. Unless you have reason to believe you're one of the 'low pressure offenders', you're basically betting that the 15 cents expected value in savings is worth more than the time you spend checking your air at each fill up.

This is a new idiot light that means something specific that most people can fix themselves. Check Engine can means dozens of things, most of which the average user cannot do anything about, short of scheduling a trip to the shop. So if the light Does come on, I think most people would actually take care of it.

The 3-4% is in the individual instance of having significantly low tires, but since not all, or even quite few, cars fit that description, the across-the-board savings are significantly less.

(All emphasis mine - Ei) I agree - It's funny how often DrG is right about things!

I don't doubt they can be made rather effective, if they aren't already so. But is the extra cost and maintenance (and gasoline used to lug the additional hardware everywhere with your car) worth more than the stastitical $25-$150 saved on gas? Or if one wants to be generous, that plus the less than one in a million chance that yours will be one of the estimated lives saved?

__________________
Today's forecast: Government corruption.

Tomorrow's forecast: 100% chance of more 'politics as usual'

Maybe it's finally time to vote Libertarian

Isn't 7 PSI somewhere between 1/3 and 1/4 underinflated? Seems like they're not working that well.

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When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

For one, Dr didnt say that LBS did.

Two, a "very late" model would mean a older car. He didn't say the "very latest" model. Huge difference in the meaning.

Extra cost? They are a standard option and have been for the last four or five years.

And I didn't know a small micro chip would cost that much more in gas.

You been wrong from the beginning, give up now.

"Late Model" is generally understood to mean "newer", as opposed to, say "early model". "Late Model" is a term that is often confused to mean "old" (I've done it myself).

Late model - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A while back, I contributed to a project in which we wrote a program that would allow you to hook up your laptop to the car's onboard computer (we used a cable with a build in converter from the OBD spec to serial). It would read (and clear, if you wanted) the car's trouble codes, and process a whole bunch of metrics based on the data that the on board computer throws. I assume the most commercially useful aspect of this would be to allow you to make a car shutup about not wearing your seatbelt

I wrote a series of (XML) files and internal programming objects to represent the trouble codes themselves, and I couldn't seem to recall anything in OBD-II having to do with "low tire pressure". As it turns out, there aren't any codes in the current standard - all the standard has is codes for the "Tire Pressure Monitoring System" not communicating with the on board computer - essentially meaning that the tire pressure system itself was on the fritz, as far as OBDII is concerned. Since OBDII was first incorporated/standardized in the late 90's, this means that tire pressure monitoring was a completely after market deal and apparently remains so, at least for the time being.

I don't think that really has any bearing on anything Obama said, but I thought some might find that interesting.

Here are the OBDII trouble codes, for anyone interested:

Generic OBD-II C Chassis Trouble Codes (with tire interaction)

Generic OBD BXXXX Body Trouble Codes (generic "catch-all")

__________________
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Guilty as charged.

Vindicated as above.

Just because something is standard doesn't mean there's no extra cost, simply that the extra cost is built into the base price. Otherwise, they'd be giving away cars for free - After all, wouldn't the frame, engine, and other basic elements, all standard, simply be a sum of 'no additional cost's?

I assumed there was some sort of physical apparatus needed. Not necessarily huge - I was going to guess not more than 2 lbs. But even if it's only a few extra transistors, some wire and a lightbulb (or LED), there's still some small additional cost in gas.

I can't be wrong, as I have no absolute position. I consider the automated tire pressure warnings to be a waste of money, but I don't take that opinion as some absolute that others must agree to. Unless you mean the 'late model' thing, in which case I'm quite right. Or unless you mean my implied position that mandating TPMS on cars is a bad idea by most standards, in which case I stand by that and await some evidence that it's wrong, other than just your personal pronouncement.

__________________
Today's forecast: Government corruption.

Tomorrow's forecast: 100% chance of more 'politics as usual'

Maybe it's finally time to vote Libertarian

The dumest moron who owns a car KNOWS to keep their tires inflated. McCain's point is he agreed with Obama's statement regarding inflated tires, but strongly disagrees "that we can inflate our way out of this energy crisis".

OBAMA IS AGAINST OFF-SHORE DRILLING, OBAMA IS AGAINST NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS, OBAMA IS AGAINST CLEAN COAL TECHNOLOGY.

McCain is for all of the above, because he knows that we cannot eliminate any option to become energy independant.

Correction: He knows that now.

Or, rather, pretends too.

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All things serve The Beam

What, another flip-flop from Obama? Probably after he saw a poll that 78% of Americans really do want to drill here, & drill now!

I think Obama thought we could inflate & blow (windmills) out of this energy crisis> So he along with Nancy Pelosi--(trying to save the planet single-handedly) kicked off-shore drilling, nuclear power plants & clean coal technology to the curb. Unbelievable stupidity.