It’s not like we haven’t maintained it properly. Every 3000 miles it gets a new oil filter and oil change. I replace the brake rotors and pads when they are worn. We always put the best tires on it and keep them properly inflated. It has had two new batteries during its lifetime. It gets regular tune-ups. It’s had a good life.
Lately, it has become… well, incontinent. The garage has a large – and growing – puddle of something oily beneath the poor car. On top of that, the air conditioner quit. I can’t say precisely when it quit, but the wife has been using the 4-60 A/C method most of this summer. What is the 4-60 A/C method? You roll down all four windows and drive 60 miles per hour. It doesn’t help much and leaves her hair looking like that new “just out of bed” messy style. But it’s still better than arriving looking like a wet dishtowel.
It’s been a good car, but yes, the time has come to think about a replacement.
I have never been a fan of used cars especially those only a year or two old. You have to ask, why would someone get rid of a car that soon? Although, those cars more … mature, have usually been around the block more than a time or two, so you might not be gaining much by trading in your old problems for new ones.
No, I like new cars. I like the warranty with a new car, although I have seldom had to use it. I like the feel of a new car. And I like the smell of a new car.
What I don’t like these days is the look of the new cars. One day when the PT Cruiser was in the shop, I rented a new Buick. Wow! A Buick! Nice car. My impression when setting in it for the first time was, huh? Well, I recognized the steering wheel, and brake and accelerator pedals, but everything else was foreign. I may just as well have been sitting at the controls of a 747.
I went to put the key (yes, the Buick did have a key) into the ignition. There was none. The rental guy showed me how to start the car by just putting your foot on the brake and pressing the “start” button. I still don’t know that the key was for. Nothing seemed to use it.
Okay, now that the engine is on, let’s back out. Wait a minute! There is no gearshift lever! Back to the rental guy. Turns out, there is a little knob on the console that controls the transmission.
Now I’m finally out of the lot and on the road. In front of me is a bewildering array of buttons – all with some sort of hieroglyphics – and a couple of computer screens. One screen appears to be showing the car’s speed, and the other is giving me more information than a Sunday newspaper.
I experimented with a few of the buttons and managed to get the A/C and fan to a somewhat comfortable point. I have no idea what most of the buttons did, though, and I’m certain the owner’s manual was the size of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.”
I did manage to make it through the day but really didn’t go far. Even so, I still needed to have the same gas reading as when I left, so I pulled into a filling station. Uh, what side is the filler on? Of course, I had a 50 percent chance of guessing right and 100 percent chance of being wrong. So, whip the car around to the other side. Now I am confronted with a filler door that won’t open. Well, back to the buttons. There must be one with something that looks like a filler door that will open the thing. There wasn’t!
I panic! I am cutting it close on time to return the car, and just know they will be charging me for an extra day. Well, forget it. I know they will charge me ten dollars a gallon for what I used, but what-the-hey. I had no way of putting gas in it and didn’t have time to read through “War and Peace” to figure it out.
As it turned out, the PT Cruiser wasn’t done. I still needed a car, so the dealer was kind enough to provide a loaner – yes, I should have asked for one earlier.
When the service adviser brought the loaner around, he appeared in a brand new Chrysler 200. Wow! New car! It was then I noticed the Chrysler looked nearly identical to the Buick I had just returned. Parked next to each other, you could not tell the difference. Then it dawned on me; nearly all cars from all the different manufacturers look the same. Is there a conspiracy here, or did the engineers all go to the same school of design? Every car looks alike! And they all look like pregnant roller skates. There are no lines or distinguishing features, just the same blah in every car.
Call me nostalgic, but I do long for the ‘50s and ‘60s when cars had class, for the days when high-performance meant a mean engine and drive train, not a bigger amp. No Bluetooth, Pandora, or GPS for me. Give me a ’57 Chevy with standard transmission and a big V-8 – American iron with American muscle and class. A car you could be proud to own and drive.
Oh, well… dream on. I guess, I will be stuck with a pregnant roller skate and car payment larger that my mortgage. Maybe I can paint a Confederate flag on it so I can find it in a parking lot.
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