Thursday, February 07, 2008

Cars.


"I can't complain but sometimes i still do." - Joe Walsh
I've had my new car for 10 months now... Plenty of time to figure out all the benefits and pitfalls of my car. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my new car, but being me, I feel the need to have something to complain about, even though its really nothing to be complaining about. While i'm at it, i'll go ahead and throw in things i miss about the old Gustermobile. But i'll start with the new gustermobile, so here it is, the list of things i'd change.

1.) Radio: I love the radio in my car, but there is one weird thing about it. When i put on a cd and turn on random, the song has to finish for the random to take effect. In other words, if you try to get a new song on random by pushing the track forward button, it just goes to the next track, not another random track. Most other music players that have a random function lets you get a new random song every time you hit the track forward button, but not mine.

2.) Headlights: I prefer to drive with my lights on all the time because it helps my silver car be seen in dusk conditions. It's just safer to drive with your lights on all the time. The only problem with this is that my car doesn't automatically turn my lights off. Granted, my old car didn't let me do this either, but a lot of cars have this feature. Even my mother's 7 year old hyundai elantra turns off her lights for her (and has probably saved her a few batteries in the process). I still have to manually turn my lights on and off.

3.) Dimmer Switch: Most cars have a switch that you can dim your interior lights. On most of the cars i've seen, this switch is a manual wheel. My switch is in my instrument panel (you twist the odometer toggle button). Since my odometer is digital, so is my dimmer. The problem with this is that the step between full brightness and the next step down is huge. When i drive during the day, i have to turn the the dimmer on full brightness, because the next step down is not bright enough for me to see how fast i'm going. This wouldn't be a problem, except when i drive at night, full brightness is WAY too bright and i feel like my instrument panel is blinding me. So depending on the time of day, i have to adjust my dimmer to fit the time of day. Adding to the pain in the ass-edness of this, i have to reach through my steering wheel to get to the switch... which isn't very safe while i'm driving (granted it's safer than removing the keys of the car while the car is still rolling to unlock the glove compartment to listen to the radio, right tom?).

4.) Locks: In most new cars, when the car starts moving forward, the car doors lock themselves. It's just safer to keep your car doors locked while you're driving around. I try to keep them locked at all times when when i'm driving, but i have to remember to lock my door.

5.) Locks (cont.): Since i like to ride around with my locks on, it would be helpful if when i pulled the handle (to get out of the car) it would unlock. VW and Audi does this great. You pull the handle twice to open the door. The first time to unlock the door, the second time to open the door. One of the reasons for this is that someone gets upset when i don't unlock the door fast enough for her to exit the car. But that's another blog. Moving on...

6.) Gas door: My gas door is on the passenger side... kinda inconvenient, but at least i can actually pump gas into the car.... WOO HOO!

7.) Aux input: Last, and well let's face it, least. Important that is... is the placement of the auxiliary input for my ipod/mp3 player. It's right in the middle of the radio, so the cord that comes out of the radio is all over the car, as opposed to where everyone in their right mind puts their ipod, in the cupholder/cubby hole to the driver's right side. It would've been better to put an input jack somewhere closer to where the ipod is going to lay.

Now I'll go over some of the things i miss about my car.

1.) Eat More Chicken: My antenna topper. I don't have an actual antenna on my new car, so i can't have an antenna topper. This guy gave my car some character, some personality, some style. and i miss it.

2.) Apathy: Sorry mom and dad, but with the accent, i really felt like i could "abuse" it more than i can with my car now. For example, when it snows at tech, they push all the snow into big piles, and you only see 4 wheeling cars parked in those spots.... unless i was driving that day. I could park my car on a big pile of snow, and not really care if the suspension was harmed during the process. It also made me unafraid of driving in the snow. Right now, i don't feel particularly confident in driving my car with the extra power and the sport tires in the snow.

That's about it for my cars. Drive safe!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

All I'm gonna say is... quit yer bitchin'.

:-)

MotherOf3Guys said...

I love my lights off feature!!...You're right...it has !saved me more than once, I'm sure, from a dead battery! PS I miss the blue accent because I could always recognize you coming...still can't recognize you in the silver car...unless you honK!

Neva said...

Silver...I just posted a pretty nice silver car over at my place. Probably couldn't see it coming either. It is amazing how little things about cars annoy you....Wow...back in the blogging world...I will check back.

Unknown said...

I see what you did there in the dimmer switch paragraph. One of these days I may actually write a blog about the deadly fate of the 1978 Buick Opel...but it won't be today.

Bobby said...

Jeff,

Maybe this will make you feel better: I drive a 1991 Acura Integra that I bought in December of 1990. It now has 175k miles, no air conditioning, broken rear defroster, broken antenae and radio (this makes my 1/2 hour ride to work verrrry looonnngg.) In addition to this, the struts are shot and I feel every little bump in the road. But as the bumper sticker says "Don't laugh...it's paid for."