End of A Love Affair
Somewhere in the green countryside, in the bucolic hills of Sonoma County, my car is dreaming. It hugs the road, as only a $70,000 car can. It has more horsepower for the dips and valleys than it has a right to. It owns the road. It owns the driver. It used to own me.
Not any longer.
I truly loved this car. I loved it the day I picked it out at the showroom. The faded blue fed my need to buy a car that wouldn’t do well at resale. I wasn’t going to re-sell it. I was going to keep it forever. Some day I was going to be a very spry senior citizen, driving her little antique sports car, hitting people with her cane when they touched it, unwilling to let anyone else drive it. Certainly no future grandson or daughter, God forbid. Maybe not my husband, if he didn’t improve his driving habits and need for spine-tingling speed.
Sound system was superb. The stylish sporty chrome dials and buttons were specially designed for the AMG package. The dealer told me how wonderful the car was every time I took it in for service, that I should run the wheels off of it, that I should take it out, like a good racehorse and let it rip.
And I did. I explored the roads of Sonoma County, drove to and from Los Angeles a couple of times and did a trip up to Portland and Las Vegas. Fun to let your hair fly in the breeze. Suntan your face. Let them watch you go by in that one of a kind car, and say, “Wow. Look at her.”
In the process, I hit every pothole between here and LA, most of them in Northern California. I hit the parking barriers, even ran into the valet parking sign at the hospital the night my granddaughter was born, and nearly took the thing home with me. Twice the front low-lying bumper cost us $2900. I once had to duct tape it on my way home from a writer’s meeting in the East Bay. Although the duct tape was metallic silver, it didn’t quite match.
At a whopping 9,000 miles on it, new tires were needed. All around. It cost almost $1800. I’ve gone through four of those now. Sets. The front passenger seat sticks. The windshield cracked a month ago. The registration is due in April, for another $500. The services are at least $600 twice a year.
And I’m done.
Oh, this car has been fun, don’t get me wrong. I’ve loved nearly every minute driving it. But we don’t live in Germany where you can go 120 mph, and, with the state of our freeways, even if you could, it would be worth your life. One of the other beautiful cars I bought, about five years ago, the one I thought I would keep the rest of my life, my husband picked up from the dealer. Five minutes into his ride home on the freeway, he got rear-ended at 34 mph and what was once a sleek, beautiful 4-door sedan suddenly became a compact Peugeot – 70’s style small. We didn’t get to drive our “new” car for nearly two months. The 120-point owner education session had lasted twenty times his ride home that day.
So maybe God has been trying to tell me something. It’s been a wonderful lover. But it makes me choose between my pocketbook and my ego. I could have it as a trophy lover, someone to parade around in front of everyone. But I kissed him goodbye.
Like an unfaithful lover, he wasn’t worth the real cost of ownership. It’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done for me.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
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I know exactly where you're coming from. I used to have a convertible, too. It's the only car I've ever been ego-invested in, but in the end the combination of being nickled and dimed to death by an aging car, losing confidence in its reliability, and the fact that living in Seattle limits your top-down time, I had to let it go.
Still miss it.
Great post. I like the image of the unfaithful lover – great at times, but maybe not worth it in the end. I've never had a car like that. I'm way too practical. I love the picture!!! Now we can picture you as you were tooling around in your convertible. And you'll always have your memories!
The closest I ever came to this was with my gorgeous 1987 Mercury. She wasn't a convertible but acted like one. Bright red with red plush interior, her gear box was to imitate as a race car. At least that was the effect the night my son and his buddies snuck her out of the driveway and caught a speeding ticket in Yolo County. After 100,000 miles she groaned to an expensive stop. I miss her still, my sister-car!
Thanks, guys. Good to commiserate with friends, 'cause it does feel like the end of a love affair! A very painful love affair!