http://www.nyrp.org/About/New_Leaf_Restaurant_Bar

No such luck.  On my first visit, they ripped me off and still didn’t fix the problem.  The kicker is, the problem turned out to be so simple, I ended up fixing it myself, and am stunned and disappointed they didn’t find it themselves.

I was driving across midtown and a coolant hose blew, a hose that takes coolant from the engine block into the bulkhead.  The hose didn’t break, it just burst off its fitting.  I didn’t realize this until I had already called the tow truck.  ( I was on 51st Street, right by St. Patrick’s, at 9 AM.  The best thing to do was get out of traffic fast).

I got a tow to Cybert, who had done my annual inspection.  The owner assigned a mechanic to the truck, and told me they would call me to tell me what they had found and give me an estimate of the repairs.

The mechanic called that afternoon, and in barely intelligible English (he was African) said he had replaced the hose and that with a coolant flush and radiator pressure test it was going to cost $275 or thereabouts.

“Well, what had been the problem?” I asked.

“Bad hose.  Replaced hose.”

“That sounds like the symptom.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m saying, what would cause pressure to build up to the point that a hose would pop off its fitting?”

“It’s a old hose.  You want coolant flush?”

“Can I talk to the owner?”

“Ok, one minute.”

The owner got on the phone, I started to ask him what he thought the root of the problem might be.

“Look, it’s gotten really busy.  I understand George has got it fixed.  He’ll tell you about it.”  Seriously.  I was smelling the snow job.

George was back on the line.

“You want the flush and pressure test? $275?”

“I’m trying to understand what the problem was.”

“Is an old hose.  That’s it.  Somethin always gonna break.  That was it.”

“That was it?”

“Yeah!”

“Ok.”

What else am I suppose to do over the phone?  Apparently $275 is not enough to allow for a discussion of causes and symptoms.

I got the flush and pressure test done, and picked up the truck that evening, for $284.85.

I was suspicious, so I drove it around midtown traffic for an hour, half hoping the hose would burst again, or the temperature gauge would shoot up, as it had right before the hose burst.  No such luck, everything was fine, and I took the truck back to its garage, with a lingering feeling of auto-angst.

The following weekend on a Saturday evening, I took the truck out for a road trip to Hofstra, in Long Island,  to go see a friend in a concert.  Had to be there by 8PM.  Never made it.

I was on 495 going past LeFrak city in Queens (one of the ugliest landscapes in NYC) and the temperature gauge  – which had been suspiciously high — shot up into the red.  I pulled over to the shoulder and had no choice but to let the engine cool down.   When it was cool I drove off again.  Within six miles, the gauge shot up again.  I pulled over.  It went on like this until I managed to pull into a gas station and, with nothing else to try, decided to buy some antifreeze and see if the level was low.  I really couldn’t think of any other explanation.

Turns out it was low.  I ended up adding a gallon of antifreeze to the system.  Now, why was it low?  Cybert had just filled it earlier in the week.  They had pressure tested it, and found no leaks.  I never saw any leaks beneath the truck where I parked.

Turns out, believe it or not, that the culprit was the seal on the radiator cap.  Yes.  A little rubber seal the size of a silver dollar.  It was not broken.  It was just bent over itself.  So it wasn’t sealing well.  I was at wits end, and didn’t think that unbending the seal would solve this problem, but I had to try something.  So I unbent the seal,  set it right in the cap, and haven’t had a problem since.

I guess the bad seal was letting some coolant evaporate off the top, thereby bringing the level down too low to cool well, etc….  That’s  the only explanation I can think of.

Now, why couldn’t the guys at Cybert have just taken a look at that radiator cap?  Isn’t that the first thing one does, the first thing a pro does, with radiator issues?   They didn’t do it because they just don’t give a damn.  They just want to charge for big ticket service (radiator flush, pressure test), get you out, and move on.

I have moved on.  I will never be back.

receipt from Cybert Tire for experience described above

Parking in Manhattan: Good Luck!

If you own a car in Manhattan, or are bringing a car into Manhattan, you might find this useful: http://nyc.bestparking.com/

You cannot live and work in Manhattan, and park on the street.  The parking rules and regulations make it impossible.  You’d spend all your free time looking for a  spot for the following day.  You need to keep the car in a garage.

If you are driving into Manhattan for a weekend, an event, or anything for which you want peace of mind and don’t want to be thinking about the fate of your car, you need to keep it in a garage during your visit.  My father drove into the Financial District one weekend for a few hours in the mid-nineties, to visit the WTC towers, and  promptly got his car window smashed and car phone stolen while he was up in the towers.

Much more recently, my cousin drove into the city for a three day visit from Boston, and parked her car on Riverside Drive.  It was mistakenly towed away by the DoT.  One of their tow truck operators thought she was in a bus stop.  She spent the better part of her visit with the police and the DoT.  She eventually found her car in the impound lot, and spent months fighting the towing fees and ticket by mail from Boston.  She did eventually win, and got all her money back.  But she sure as hell didn’t get her vacation back.

If you’ve come back to your street parking spot and find yourself asking “Where’s my car?”, like my cousin did, you can check if your car was towed by the DoT. You just enter your license plate and state. The results will also tell you which impound lot the DoT took it to. It generally takes an hour from the time of towing for this information to be loaded into the DOT database.

So, um, no, my family doesn’t visit by car much anymore, and yes, I recommend a garage.  Now, you say, that’s going to be expensive.  Yes, if you go around midtown looking at parking rates, you’ll see monthly rates around $400 ~ $500, plus $100 more for an SUV or luxury car.  And the rates only go up on the East Side, in the West Village, or on the Upper West Side.

I have a pickup truck.  I thought I was going to have to garage it in Brooklyn or upper Manhattan and only see it twice a year.  I can’t afford $500/month to park.  But then I came across this site: http://nyc.bestparking.com/.  The prices here are much, much lower.  Like $160/month for the first year, $200/month thereafter.  Much more affordable.  I ended up parking in an Icon lot in midtown, 2 blocks from work, for $200/month — for a 4×4 pickup.  That’s a good deal.  If you know of a better one, tell me about it.

The thing to do on this site, is to not just take the listed prices at their word.  Fill in one of the forms, telling them how much you’re willing to pay.  Someone will call you with an offer.  It’ll be better than anything you saw driving around.

Of course, I only have experience with monthly parking deals.  A colleague who lives in New Jersey tells me he uses the site when driving in for Rangers games.  He uses it to make a reservation for a spot in advance.  That way he doesn’t get hosed when driving up to a lot.

They also have a mobile web site: http://mobile.bestparking.com which lets you check prices while your on your way.

And there you have it, folks.  The little nitty gritty about parking in Manhattan.

I guess this is a classic.  Mild on science fiction, heavy on historical tourism.  A great read for any New Yorker.  Si Morley, our cool chill protagonist, found languishing in a NYC ad firm in the 70s, gets recruited into a top secret government project to travel back in time.  The G-men decide to send him back to 1882 Manhattan, using the Dakota apartment building as the time machine.

It’s a very clever story, and serves up a wealth of information on life in Manhattan back then.

Students, if you have to read up on the 1880s for class, read this first.  It’s a history book with a plot.  All history books should be written this way.