OutdoorType

Several years ago my old friend Brooke returned from a business trip ranting about how much she hated the rental car she was given. It was a PT Cruiser and she could not say enough bad things about this vehicle. In fact, Brooke ranted so strongly in opposition to this car that her story stayed with me for a long time. Now, it also happens my officemate has railed against the crappiness of this vehicle, and while perhaps not with the same vehemence as Brooke, his driving woes certainly served as a cautionary tale.

Fast forward to Tuesday. I’d finally decided to do something about the check engine light that has been glowering at me from the dashboard for quite some time. As long as its amber light remained lit I would never pass the Virginia emissions test, so I took it to a shop near my office. This shop, which came recommended, could not fix the problem. They kept the car for hours and hours and hours and finally called to say, “Hey, so we think we know what the problem is, and what we’d like to do is cut this wire, and ground it off, and see what happens.”

They wanted to cut a wire to the computer that runs the engine. And they weren’t 100% sure what might happen after cutting the wire. WTF?! My options varied from the light would go off and the car would pass the test or the engine might never start again. I chose plan B and took the car into the dealer, but not without first paying $90 for the privilege of having the first shop do absolutely nothing of value.

The dealer couldn’t look at the car until the morning so I was now presented with a few more decisions, like, do I drop off the car and walk home and then telecommute for a day or two? Or, do I suck it up and get a rental? I went for the rental, secretly hoping I’d end up with something fun and/or cool (I’ve always regretted not going for the Mercedes that time in Hollywood, it wasn’t that much more).

I did not get a Mercedes.

Earlier in the year I’d been to Boston and was given a Ford Freestyle, a not particularly impressive vehicle. The Freestyle is one of those hybrid misfit autos that wants to look like an SUV but ride like a car. What you get in the end is crap. And not very impressive crap. I didn’t hate my Freestyle (maybe because it had a nice GPS nav system), but I quickly figured out that I’d never buy one.

I did not get a Freestyle either.

No, instead I got a PT Cruiser. I wasn’t immediately unhappy, but then, I’d only heard stories, and you see these cars everywhere so some people must like them. Maybe my friends are just a vocal minority, I thought. Maybe they just missed the draw of this classic looking car. My friends, they missed nothing. The PT Cruiser is the worst car I have ever driven.

Let us begin with olfactory senses. This car did not come with the nice, new car smell, no, it came with the odor of stale cigarettes. In fact, the smell was bad enough that the previous driver had left both front windows cracked. The cracked windows presented the next problem… How to raise them… For it was after all cold and misting outside. I searched the door panel for a switch. Nothing. Stopped at a red light I clicked on the overhead and looked for an old fashioned window handle. Nothing. I pawed around the center console area, feeling around for anything that might raise the windows. Nothing. Finally, after quite some time, I found it. The controls for the windows are on the dash. The dashboard, because that’s intuitive.

Other things of annoyance… Several times I accidentally flashed high beams at my fellow drivers because the turn signal wand allowed me to do so with the slightest amount of pressure and while the retro analog clock looked cool at first, the grey on grey color scheme made it difficult to read (same for any of the other gauges). In the driver’s seat I never found a comfortable position for my body. Small windows mean the sill is up too high to rest an elbow and the arm rest was actually too low. I felt a little like Goldilocks. The small windows and large columns added another drawback, namely blindspots. It didn’t matter which way I turned my head, I could barely see the traffic that I knew was out there. Consumer Reports sums up these problems by saying, “flawed driving position and compromised visibility are detractions.” No kidding.

The good news is that while my real car remains in the shop for day two of it’s repair odyssey, today I was able to get a new, different car to drive around town. And as much as I hated the first I’m kind of loving (maybe a little too much even) car #2. Somehow I ended up with a brand new 2008 Xterra. It’s so new in fact that there were only 65 miles on the car! And yes, it does have that new car smell (which I know is likely the results of toxic chemicals). Still, it was familiar and easy to drive (at least once I took it out of 4 wheel drive low. How anyone managed to drive it like that I have no idea) and I made it home without any sort of angst at all. Now if only there could be a Christmas miracle that would magically lower my impending auto repair bill. Do you think they have grants for this sort of thing?