On the Road Again

"To attract men, I wear a perfume called "New Car Interior."
~ Rita Rudner

So Dear Wife’s truck broke down again the weekend before last. I say ‘again’, because this is becoming an all too common experience. It’s not a new truck and it’s racked up a fair few miles. Not as many as Angus the 4Runner mind you, but a hefty number all the same. Which means that it’s reached the stage where bits are starting to need replacing. Not just fan belts and hoses but expensive parts like the transmission for instance.

We’ve been nursing that particular piece of technology along for over a year now and when the truck left her stranded by the roadside about a month ago, the symptoms seemed to fit. Turned out to be the alternator instead which meant a repair in the hundreds of dollars instead of the thousands, which was all well and good but we know we can only dodge that bullet for so long.

However, common occurrence or not, this last breakdown was particularly unfortunate in that not only was I elsewhere for the day, I had committed the unforgivable sin of not having my cell phone on. Or at least it was switched on, but it wasn’t on my person. When I changed into my kilt for the band performance at the Polo Club, I forgot to transfer the phone to my sporran. Instead I left it in the pocket of my shorts, which I left in the back of the car. Which meant that Dear Wife was stranded in a supermarket parking lot for over three hours before she tracked down a friend to come and pick her up. Meanwhile, I was unreachable.

In a beer tent.

Having fun.

When she originally bought the truck, Dear Wife had a horse and needed something which could haul a trailer, along with bails of hay, saddles and other equine accessories. That hasn’t been necessary in a long time and for all that we love the truck, it isn’t an ideal vehicle for our lifestyle. The gas mileage isn’t that great, it’s a bugger to park and the air-conditioning died some time ago which makes things unpleasant in the summer, particularly with highs above 100 degrees like we had this week. Winter driving is even worse. It handles poorly on ice and snow, even with bags of sand in the bed and being only 2-wheel drive, requires snow tires to get any form of traction on the hills.

So, this week found us only semi-reluctantly, in the market for a new car. Travel anywhere in the 285 corridor and you’re going to see plenty of Subarus. (Generally from behind as they crawl up the hills blocking the left lane. Ha Ha!) No, that’s not entirely true although a large number of older models are still on the road and they don’t seem to have the same oomph as the newer ones. But there’s no denying they’re popular. They appear to be an ideal fit for those who don’t want to go the big truck/SUV route, but want something that can handle Colorado’s mountain winters better than a regular sedan. And they look kinda cool too.

A couple of friends own them, as does Dear Wife’s dad and we’d enjoyed driving his during our visit last month. We were sold on the manufacturer, so no problem there. The only challenge now was to decide whether to go with the Forester or the Outback. I’ve always been a fan of the Outback so it was with a sinking heart I discovered Dear Wife leaning towards the Forester. I don’t often win these arguments, but fortunately, once we’d had a chance to play in them both, she for once, agreed I was right.

I’ve never bought a new car in my life and have only spent a limited amount of time in car dealerships. I don’t mind looking at shiny new cars, but don’t really have much of a clue why this one is so much further out of my price range than that one. I’ve also heard horror stories of endless negotiation battles with tough as nails salesmen. Some people have told me they’ve sat in the dealer’s offices until the wee hours of the morning to see who would crack first. I don’t have that kind of time, and I certainly don’t have that kind of energy.

Fortunately, these days we have easier options. One of the best investments we ever made was membership in AAA. Not only does a helpful phone operator send a tow truck to pick us up whenever we ask, they also offer a car purchasing program whereby they pretty much do everything for you. You tell them the type of vehicle you’re looking for, the bits and bobs you’d like it to have and your choice of colors. They then scour the local dealers to see if what you want is available and (hopefully) call to say when you can pick it up. Not only that, but after using all kinds of complicated arithmetic they determined we could actually afford it.

AAA lent us one in attractive shade of metallic urine and more or less gave us permission to see what it could do. We put it through its paces in the Rocky Mountain foothills where it passed with flying colors so somewhat predictably, we were sold. Which meant that after a whirlwind of phone calls over an astonishingly short period of time; we were handing over the largest check we’ve ever written in exchange for a set of three (comically large) keys. Moments later, we were pulling out of AAA’s parking lot at the wheel of a very shiny and new smelling Subaru Outback. Well actually, it was quite a few moments later because it took some time for us to get acquainted with all those buttons, lights, levers and switches.

I’m old enough to remember when owner’s manuals were about 20 pages long and that included directions for rebuilding the gear box. This one’s thicker than the last Harry Potter book and takes 59 pages just to explain the function of the seat belts. We’ve owned the car for five days now and I’m still only about a third of the way through the darn book. I’ve figured out the CD player, the sunroof and how to make heated seats work – you know; the important stuff. But the boring bits like how to change a tire, or check the steering fluid, well that’s just going to have to wait.

Right now, I’m just having too much fun driving the thing.