{"id":4119,"date":"2023-10-01T16:30:37","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T00:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/?p=4119"},"modified":"2024-04-01T15:07:07","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T23:07:07","slug":"roadworthy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/2023\/10\/01\/roadworthy\/","title":{"rendered":"Roadworthy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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With the weather getting colder, my chances to take the Scout out on long trips get slimmer. Looking at the forecast Saturday morning, I knew it would be iffy, but I haven’t had her out on any adventures pretty much all year due to the exhaust leak. Now that she’s fixed, I figured I’d take her on a shakedown run to my father-in-law’s house to see how she ran. The short answer is that she did great. We covered 200 miles with absolutely no problems at all; the engine is strong and smooth and sounds great, just like I remember. It was overcast in the morning so I decided to take the top down and pack the bikini top just in case, but I wound up leaving it down for the whole day.<\/p>\n

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Choosing the Scout for a trip like this basically comes down to convenience versus fun. The Hondas are dry and climate controlled, and obviously the gas mileage is better. The Scout requires advance planning and a keen eye on the weather. I reviewed the forecast carefully this morning and saw that there would be sun down south, so I made sure to pack wet weather gear, a pair of shorts, and a fleece. What I didn’t remember was a warm hat of some kind, so when I left my FIL’s house I stopped at the local Marshall’s and picked up a cheap one. I wound up putting it on about 20 miles up the road, and stored it in the lockbox between the seats, where it will now be the truck hat.<\/p>\n

I will say that in a lot of ways, the Scout is a superior vehicle for long-distance travel than the Accord. The seats are nicer (thanks, Chrysler!), the wheel is much more comfortable, and the seating position is better. I can see around me better for obvious reasons. Steering is two-finger thanks to power steering; the only thing that gets funky is hitting expansion joints at freeway speeds and sudden braking; the left side is grabbing before the right, which requires some careful adjustment.<\/p>\n

These days, I get more and more looks from people. I had a guy roll up next to me in a pickup at a light and ask how old it was. A black dude in a slammed BMW wagon pulled up alongside and gave me a thumbs up; I pointed back at him and returned the sentiment. A couple of dudes in a big white work truck honked and waved as I overtook them.<\/p>\n

Some small issues: I noticed that the temp gauge isn’t working anymore, so I’m going to swap out the temp sender and see if that makes a difference. I had to use the wipers coming back up 695 into Catonsville (home by the hair of my chin) and saw that the secondary arm on the driver’s wiper isn’t connected anymore, so I need to get a new retainer clip for that. The headlights definitely need to be adjusted, but they’re still very dim. An LED upgrade might be in order next year.<\/p>\n

Overall, I’m thrilled to have her back on the road, and I can’t wait to have some more adventures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the weather getting colder, my chances to take the Scout out on long trips get slimmer. Looking at the forecast Saturday morning, I knew it would be iffy, but I haven’t had her out on any adventures pretty much all year due to the exhaust leak. Now that she’s fixed, I figured I’d take […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trip-logs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p58Ac2-14r","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4119"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4124,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4119\/revisions\/4124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}