The Ride is Chosen

This is an update on the replacement issue on a new/old set of wheels for my youngest daughter.
Turns out that after much searching, researching, kicking tires, and test drives, the decision reached turned out not to buy a car. Thus was the text I received, late this afternoon, after mounting yet another internet search for a car to replace the last lost to lightning.

What...what...no car. This just wouldn't do, and I expressed my displeasure through a return text. There has to be a car. What could he be thinking, plans were for her to take the car to school to enable ease of coming home, without someone to retrieve her.

Perhaps our heat wave has worn down the effort, but I was determined before the week ended we would at least have a line on a vehicle.

As I prepared my argument, and settled in the shady, yet still hot lawn chair, I listened to the decision. Before I could even present my opinion, a lovely little new car pulled into the parking spot, driven by my smiling daughter.

Seems as though after much forethought about repairs possible with an older vehicle, and being five hours away, the decision was reached to not buy a car but lease one instead. Any repairs would be covered, the gas savings would be substantial, and the warranty was great. After I thought about the choice, I could see how this would be a reasonable conclusion.
A new car, perhaps a little smaller than she had hoped for, but with enough style and bells and whistles to satisfy my tech savy kid.
So although I would preferred an older prepaid car, guess the payments will do and we can decide in three years whether we want to keep the car or find another.

So no true lies where thrust my way, we did not buy a car, but leased a new one. Thus the search has ended and we can now move on. Thank goodness.

Looking for a new ride

This must be the time of year when new car models are starting to roll out on the lot, and car sales fill the want ads of the local paper, and television commercials extol the value of auto shopping at Uncle Henry's Wheels for less automart. Then lest we forget the articles on line, opening our minds up to "The Ten Best Cars to Buy" and still have money for food.
I normally wouldn't pay any attention to this as car shopping is as rare here as a day off, but we just happen to be in the market for new wheels for my youngest daughter. Well new older wheels.
Her last car, a hand me down from her older sister was hit by a school bus and then one of our many deer in the area decided to give it up on the front of her car less than a mile from our home. Since the car seems to have a large bullseye, invisible to the naked eye painted on it, and she needed a reliable car to travel to work, and drive to friends houses, movies, and places eighteen year old girls travel, it seemed prudent to look for a newer old car.
Right around her high school graduation, her father took her out on what we will refer to as the GREAT CAR SEARCH. Amazing as it sounds she got a car within a few days, one that I would have liked to own myself, and one that she never expected to get until she graduated college, and had a job for a while.
Her father seemed to have a weak moment, and she became the proud owner of a nine year old Volvo SUV. What a smart buy except for the price, the gas mileage, and the fact the vehicle had three rows of seats. But she loved the car, note the word loved. After owning this dream ride for a total of two days, we left town for three, leaving her precious set of wheels in the capable hands of her father to be taken back to the lot to have a few things tweaked.
Before the aforementioned vehicle could return, our area had a set of thunderstorms. Here comes the target thing back to haunt us. Mother Nature decided to lay down a bolt of energy, which hit our well, disabled the brain module in the car, and disable some phone lines. In the big scheme of things we are grateful our home wasn't hit.
Well as the title of this blog infers, the car was deemed unfixable within the budget for the insurance company, and car number two was totaled.
So the car hunt resumes. Should it be an suv, a sedan or my choice, a small efficient car with a low repair rate?
I am nothing if not sensible.
Car lots, internet searches, still not a car that will satisfy budget as well as criteria that my daughter has deemed as important. I have noticed as the search continues, her criteria has been adjusted somewhat. Now she just wants a car and soon. Her summer is slipping away and without her own set of wheels, there are few mall visits, or even a day at the beach.
So we continue to look, and we will step up the search.
Wish us luck as we look for a new ride.

Not so quiet please.

I read a curious article today. Seems that the powers that decide this stuff, decided that hybrid cars are too quiet. Yes you read that correctly.
They are too quiet. Supposedly they pose a risk to pedestrians who may not hear a car coming.

So they are giving the manufacturers about a half dozen years or so to make them noisier.
We are bombarded by noise everwhere we go. From the boom..boom..boom of speedy cars driven by teens (how do they afford these by the way?), to the screeching of tires, the incessant honking of horns, siren, bus brakes. Very hard not to be bombarded by noise in some form or another everyday.

So what is bad about quiet, clean efficient vehicles? Are we as pedestrians so unaware of our surroundings that we have stopped looking when we cross the street, depending on the car with the dragging muffler to alert us that it is approaching?

Hopefully those with sounder judgement will review this new idea and find it to be faulty.
After all the blind don't see any cars coming but I am sure that most will hear the hum of the hybrid. The deaf don't hear anything, but will surely see the approaching cars.
Maybe we should all just listen and look, and the auto manufacturers can continue what they should be doing, building solid, sound, fuel efficient vehicles to take us from point A to point B.
Heck everyone I see have headphones on anyway, they are not hearing anything outside of those tiny outside sound blocking ear plugs. Let's just hope that they are looking.