You’re only as old as you feel! Life begins at (insert age here, a moving
target)! Your golden years!
Yeah, well, that’s nice. Somehow after turning seventy, I have become
increasingly aware of being
seventy. Every night on the news, or in
the obits in the papers, you hear about a lot of people that expire at or below my age. Everything is fine, you go to the doctor for
a routine checkup and next thing you know there’s tubes coming out of you with
strange liquids going into you. Or that little nagging pain turns out to be.... "I have some bad news for you"... Kind of alters your perspective. So it
was somewhat with this outlook that both the Flutters decided we would get
new automobiles.
MOMSTER (one) is showing her age (like us), and my
fluttermobile was developing little quirks like a door lock that has to be
fiddled with, a piece of trim inside was coming loose, one of the speakers rattles with strong bass tones, that kind of thing. Once you start to get that reluctance to
start out on a long trip, like say to Wisconsin or Missouri because of “what’s
that noise?”, “why is it downshifting on this little hill?” it isn’t fun
anymore. Besides that, I just plain WANT
a new car! I am intrigued by all the new
on-board technology and don’t want to navigate by a hand held Droid anymore. Die broke (or anyway, close to it). This may be (see paragraph one) the last car I
own, so why not get something nice. Nice
didn’t include BMW’s, Audi’s, Jags, and Mercedes
with model numbers starting with 5’s and 4’s (and price tags with 6 digits) which seemed
unnecessarily pretentious (and greatly hastening the die broke thought). So armed with extensive market research (hey!
Look at that Buick in that TV ad!) I started out. Along the way a very good friend suggested I also
consider the Hyundai Genesis which he owns and really likes. Plus I talked to a fair amount of Hyundai
owners who were very strong in support of the car. So we did the Sunday crawl of the dealers to
see the cars without sales presence. Our
local GM dealer over in Leonardtown has bunches of the Lacrosse model of Buick
which had caught my eye, but the “Team Hyundai” facility, while loaded with
lesser Sonata models, had no Genesis’s. So
finally we had to talk to somebody there, and he explained that the Genesis
market down here was fairly small. He
did say he would probably get a couple down here in a few days and would call
us.
On the distaff side of the team, despite occasional complaints
about parking, visibility, and gas prices, MFO decided that another large
vehicle was justified. We so loved MOMSTER I
for cruising and comfort she wanted a new one.
Models of Yukon’s and Suburban’s while about the size of a small house,
also carry the price tag of a small house,
so she decided that maybe top of the line wasn’t wise and looked for a
more reasonably priced one. And, (unlike me) she said she didn’t care that much about a
NAV system, and it is, lest you forget, HER car. The dealer located a Suburban in Virginia
that was about what she wanted so they trucked it in for her perusal and test
drive. Long story short (drum roll) I present
MOMSTER II
During the sessions
with the GM salesman, I managed a couple of test drives in the Lacrosse. It is an impressive vehicle with bells and
whistles for its bells and whistles. A
HUD that projects the speed on the windshield (positioned so that you still
have to lower your eyes to see it, and it is not focused on infinity). Touch screen NAV system, mood lighting (!),
XM radio, ONSTAR, heated (and cooled) seats and more. But, after a couple of
tours, we finally mutually agreed that it just wasn’t comfortable for us to sit
in. Maybe it’s us, but we felt trapped. Part of it I suspect is that the windows are
fairly tiny. I measured the driver’s
side and it was elbow to first set of knuckles.
The Fluttermobile is to finger tips.
About this time the Hyundai guy called and said he had a
couple and would we like to come and look.
We did, and were pretty impressed.
Windows to just above second knuckle, and creature comforts abound. Much more comfortable to humans such as
us, like you don't have to put your head on your shoulder to enter (as you do with the Buick) Of course there’s always something,
and Hyundai is rear wheel drive and does not offer ONSTAR. Also there is no touch screen on the Nav
system, it’s all by joystick and push.
There were two on the lot, a white one with the standard 6 cylinder, 3.8
liter engine and a pearl blue one with a peppier V8 of 4.6 liters. Again, shortening the story, I take
possession tomorrow (Thursday) at one pm.
Before closing the deal, I did do a little snooping (once again guided by my friend) around
the myriad of websites designed to help you get an idea of pricing, what they
are selling for, what rebates there are, so in the case of the Hyundai, I had
pretty much decided what I would pay that would be fair to all concerned. At my point in life (see first paragraph) I am
not one to pound the table, threaten to walk out, play one dealer against the
other, and so on. I just want the damn
car. So I was much relieved when the
salesman came back with a figure that was just a little below mine, and further
said they would give me fifteen hundred for the Fluttermobile. Deal.
So between the two, we spent most of the day Monday dealing
with the Suburban and most of yesterday with the Team Hyundai folk. It wasn’t (too) stressful, but many papers to
sign, credit applications, considering extended warranties, clear coat options,
yadda yadda. So we’re pretty worn out,
but happy. I have checked and in fact,
you can’t take it with you..
The manuals for the Genesis are about the same size as the encyclopedia
brittanica.
And maybe I’ll now be
DFD(riving)
DFD(riving)
Errata: the Cheese Krispies recipie I passed along was "borrowed" from a good cook friend, it was not an MFO find..
No comments:
Post a Comment