Saturday, April 30, 2011

Upgrade

The exciting news in our house is that my husband upgraded his car!  This is a major event since he has been saying he will look for a new car for the last 3 years.  We actually went to a car dealership 3 years ago and test drove a car, but his gelape, as we like to call it, just kept running.  The gelape is also called “The Green Beast” by our mechanic, who has seen it as a challenge to keep the car running.  I believe he actually under charges us for maintenance so that we keep the car, I think he brags about it when we aren’t around.
The gelape is 12 years and 2 days old.  It is a Pontiac Grand Prix, not only does the make not exist anymore, either does the brand.  It has only 1 working window, on the passenger side.  The air only works on levels 2 and up.  If you turn the volume on the radio down it goes up really high first and nearly deafens you and all your passengers.  The upholstery is so worn that it is like sitting against sand paper, when you move it tears at your shirt and pulls you back; saying, “Please, please help me”.  Every time a warning light comes on the dashboard my husband just covers them with black electrical tape so he doesn’t have to look at the dash lit up like a Christmas tree.  The area between the front of the car and the engine has worn so thin you can feel the heat of the engine if you are sitting in the front of the car, probably not a Consumer Reports positive mark.  The amazing thing about the gelape is that with maintenance and a new trans (put in 3 years ago) it has been an excellent car.
The engine is original and left us yesterday at 228, 556 miles!
The S60 Caspian is the new replacement!  It is a Volvo S60 T5.  Also an amazing car!  When you only buy a car once every 12 years, the technology on the new one literally blows you out of the dealership.  Our car salesman said, “Going from the Pontiac to the S60 is like trading in a Model T for a rocket ship”.  He was right!  The windows, all 4, go up AND down, the radio volume can be controlled from various places in the car and you can plug in your IPod and see the songs displayed on the center dashboard screen, the air is climate controlled by seat, and most importantly the whole car doesn’t shake and sound like it is falling apart if you do over 60 on the freeway!  The most important thing to me is knowing my family is in a safe car…we just hope our car salesman made it back to Palm Springs last night in the gelape!

1 comment:

  1. Forget the car, who's that sexy beast standing in front of the Volvo?

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