So, it has been 6 months since my last car oil change huh. The people from Servitek sent me an SMS the other day reminding me that it is 6 months already since the last checkup. (Or course, I have been in Mazda Ortigas couple of weeks ago for the rear suspension replacement).

Regularly changing your car’s engine oil and filter is one of the most important things you can do to keep your car running well. Over time your oil breaks down and your filter becomes clogged with contaminants. Depending upon your driving habits, this may take as few as 3 months or 3,000 miles or be as long as 20,000 miles or 24 months (consult your owner’s manual for service intervals). Fortunately, changing your oil is both easy and inexpensive.

Inexpensive huh? In my case, Php 2,600 for the fully synthetic oil and the service fee is not at all cheap. And here’s a funny thing, when I was paying the bill, my wallet only has Php2,500! I was a hundred pesos short! Embarrassing! Good thing there’s an ATM nearby.

For a Do-It-Youself change oil for your car, here’s the link: http://www.wikihow.com/Change-the-Oil-in-Your-Car

But if you’re like me, or if I were you, go have some mechanic who knows what he’s doing do it for you.

Ever wonder how that ‘twit–twit’ door locking mechanism (keyless-entry remote control) in your car work? I did… This post is inspired by a someone who stupidly thought that you can unlock a car with the key (unlock) miles apart by using a cellphone! Yeah, how dumb is that?! Imagine you lock your car keys inside you car and the spare key is in you house several miles away. You then asked your wife to call you and ‘twit-twit’ or unlock the car by using the cellphone. He hopes that the sound will be loud enough, coming from the earpiece of the phone, to unlock the car!

Of course it doesn’t work that work that way. By inspection you’ll instantly know that it has something to do with RF or radio frequency. Let’s read more shall we?

How does it unlock the door from 20 feet away?

How secure is it? Can I open someone else’s car with it, or can other people get into my car with theirs?

That keychain thing with your key is that locks/unlocks your car is actually a radio transmitter. When you push a button on the fob, you turn on the transmitter and it sends a code to the receiver, which in turn, locks or unlocks the door.

Now the second interesting question:

In the very early days of garage door openers, around the 1950s, the transmitters were extremely simple. They sent out a single signal, and the garage door opener responded by opening or closing. As garage door openers became common, the simplicity of this system created a big problem — anyone could drive down the street with a transmitter and open any garage door! They all used the same frequency and there was no security.

By the 1970s, garage door openers had gotten slightly more sophisticated. You can see this level of sophistication in the photos below. The first shows a controller chip (black) and a DIP switch (blue). A DIP switch has eight tiny switches arranged in a small package and soldered to the circuit board. By setting the DIP switches inside the transmitter, you controlled the code that the transmitter sent. The garage door would only open if the receiver’s DIP switch were set to the same pattern. This provided some level of security, but not much. Eight DIP switches provide only 256 possible combinations. That’s enough to keep several neighbors from opening each other’s doors, but not enough to provide any real security.

I have been tinkering with the Mazda 3′s dashboard for a couple of days now. I have been removing a part here and a part there and putting it all back again.

Taking off Emmo’s dash is like taking some sexy camisole of someone for the first time.. You shake and you worried but in nirvana at the same time.

Today though, this afternoon, I completely stripped the dashboard down to just the wiring and all the glutty stuff. I removed the side step that holds the side of the glove compartment. I then remove the glove to remove the silky thingy that hold the screws. When I removed that screws, I managed to pull the whole stereo out.

I then removed the cup holders, the one behind the hand break. Then the hand break cover. When that was removed, I unscrew the one that’s holding the change (barya) box with the cigarrete lighter.

Why did I do this? I want to become familiar with it so I can related to the guys that will be doing the mods of the dashboard.

I installing a car pc on this cool car! Cool!

As a matter of fact, I intend to document the whole process in a blog.. called carpc-101!

Not seeing any photos of the Mazda 3 on this post? Check out CarPC-101.com site soon! We’ll post it there!

It’s not actually a ticking sound… I can’t find the word.. I was driving this morning and there’s this ticking noise on Emmo’s back, left wheel.. I knew that it is the brake pad, swinging that is making the noise.

I went to BOcaue last weekend to buy a brake pad lock, but unfortunately they don’t have one for a Mazda car. Dang! If i’m looking for best diet pills, I’m sure I wont have any problem.

Anyway, besides that, this mornign also whle I was driving somewhere between Santolan and Ortigas, I felt dizzy and my hands/arms and face went numb?! What’s that?!

You can probably check out my flickr page for some more picture of her but I don’t have more for now… Will be uploading some soon though.. Some pictures on my flickr page is still my brother’s wedding.