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" Q: Why did auto makers quit making &amp;quot;ratchet&amp;quot; type seat belts so you could drive with the belts in a relaxed position? About what year was this discontinued? A: Seatbelts with that style mechanism allow you to keep an inch or two of slack in the belt, rather than keeping it lightly snugged up to your chest. It&amp;#039;s been several years since these have been in use. Unfortunately, that slack allows your body to move forward unrestrained for several inches during an accident. Combined with the stretch of the nylon belt, this free movement is then arrested when the belt takes up, decelerating you all at once. The spike in the deceleration can actually rip internal organs free inside your chest and abdomen. The slack also lets you get too close to the airbag for safety during an accident. Q: I have a 1998 Dodge Caravan. After the last battery change, some of the dash indicator lights started flashing. The A/C and the rear defroster are two of them. This is annoying because you cannot tell if they are on or off. After about twenty minutes driving they sometimes stop flashing. Two different mechanics have told me to take it to the dealer because there is some secret reset procedure to eliminate this problem. Can you shed some light on this procedure or should I just go to the dealer?  A: The only &amp;quot;secret&amp;quot; procedure I can find on your Caravan is to reset the instrument cluster, but I doubt it has anything to do with the flashing lights you&amp;#039;re experiencing. Try it: it can&amp;#039;t hurt. With the key off, depress the TRIP and RESET buttons on the odo. Tuen the key ON, but don&amp;#039;t start the car. Keep the buttons depressed, about 5 seconds, until the word CODE appears in the odometer. The display will now show any trouble codes associated with the instrument cluster.  Unfortunately, none of the trouble codes listed has anything to do with the flashing lights you&amp;#039;re seeing. You&amp;#039;ll have to find a mechanic who can do conventional troubleshooting on these circuits. Q: In regard to your answer to the question on gas mileage in Neutral vs. Drive in the Dec. 2007 issue, I notice that in my 2007 Toyota Camry (4,000 miles) in going downhill the car &amp;quot;freewheels&amp;quot; better in Neutral than it does in Drive (even in 6th gear, which is supposedly &amp;quot;overdrive&amp;quot;). This indicates to me that in Drive the wheels are still connected to the drive train and thus friction holds the car back somewhat. In Neutral the drive train is presumably disconnected from the wheels and the car freewheels better. It therefore seems to me that much better mileage should result in Neutral (although I have heard arguments that you should not normally do this for safety reasons.) I am probably wrong but there are probably many others out here in the boonies that are likewise confused. A: Read my column again: Your car uses zero fuel when coasting in gear because the fuel injection isn&amp;#039;t injecting any into the engine. Your car uses some fuel when coasting in neutral because the engine basically is idling. The &amp;quot;friction&amp;quot; from idling in drive is very small, not enough to let the car gain enough speed to compensate for the fuel burned at idle. And besides, coasting in neutral isn&amp;#039;t really safe. Q: I have a 1999 Toyota Avalon with 76,000 miles. The car is in good shape and my only real concern is the &amp;quot;ride&amp;quot;. When going over rough roads the bumps really jolt me and my passengers. The front struts were replaced during warranty due to noises when going over bumps; this apparently was an 1999 Avalon problem. I would like to keep the car for a couple more years. I have all my work done at the Toyota dealer and I would like to know what work I should request to fix this problem. I do not want to request specific items like shocks or struts but want them to address the jolting ride problem. A: Ask the mechanic to inspect the suspension for worn-out parts that need to be replaced, like ball joints and suspension and swaybar bushings. They are probably okay, so the jolting you are experiencing is probably the suspension bottoming out. Replace the front strut inserts and the rear shocks. Be sure the new rubber bump stops that come in the box with the new struts and shocks are installed. Q: I have a 2005 Toyota Avalon that just turned 15,000 miles. What are the important services to be taken care of on this checkup? The car runs great and I don&amp;#039;t want to screw it up. I read your &amp;quot;Drive it Forever&amp;quot; column in the Albany Times Union and really enjoy it. A: This is an easy one...It&amp;#039;s all in the owner&amp;#039;s manual. Q: I have a loaded 2002 Yukon Denali. It seems to be possessed sometimes. When I sit at a light for over 30 seconds, the fuel indicator will suddenly display Empty, and the Low Fuel indicator engages. But as soon as I accelerate it returns to an accurate indication of the fuel. What is the problem? A: I&amp;#039;m assuming you have a single tank, not dual tanks. The sender for the fuel level gauge is a large variable resistor attached to a swinging float inside the tank. The contact and/or the resistance wire is dirty, and not making consistent contact. When you move, the vibration and the motion of the float from sloshing reestablish the connection. Sure cure: replace the sender, which happens to be attached to the fuel pump, which is excruciatingly expensive. GM wants pretty near $500 for the pump, and the fuel tank has to be drained and removed from the truck to install it. The dealer will probably insist you have to buy the pump/sender as an assembly, but the sender should be available, although you might have to order it. It should be part #19121640, about $170. You may be able to chase up a new sender on the aftermarket, but you&amp;#039;ll have to pull the tank regardless. If you&amp;#039;re really ambitious, you might pull the sender and see if you can clean it or bend the fragile little contacts into better contact with the resistance wire, but it probably won&amp;#039;t last. And pulling the tank is such a nightmare, I would just bite the bullet and hunt down a new sensor. Low-tech solution: write down the mileage of the last fillup on the windshield in grease pencil. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/how-to/a2315/4234546/>