Might be new car time

In addition to not having a good place to stick my phone -- I mean, they made the stereo phone-compatible, how hard would it have been to create a nook? -- there aren't as many handy cubbies as in my old car. The doors have one big pocket, instead of one big and one small. The dash has one small recess, instead of a couple of big ones. The overhead sunglasses storage isn't big enough for anything else. When playing a CD I have no place in the cabin to stow the cover (to prevent it becoming a missile in a panic stop). I've been sticking my wallet in the one recess under the stereo, but it's pretty exposed and obvious from outside the car.

Not thrilled with the storage.

I looked at a lot of add-on options. There's a hanging mesh panel with pockets you can buy that hangs from the passenger seat headrest. Trouble is, it would cover up the thin pocket already on the back of that seat, and you can't see it while you're driving.

There are pockets designed to slide between the seat and the console. Trouble is, they're only about two inches deep.

I bought a cloth tray that folds flat when not in use, but has a removable velcro flap that slips between the passenger seat bottom and the seat upright to hold it in place when it is in use. Stores under the driver's seat when not in use. Seems like a handy idea, and I rarely have passengers.

Also bought a visor purse, with storage for gas credit cards, registration & insurance papers, pen, notepad, and garage door opener. I put it on the back side of the visor so it's invisible unless folded down.

Of all the thoughtful touches in new cars, they really fell down on this aspect. Cupholders are down to one too.

NoCoPilot wrote:

12.  Car has a feature called Auto Start-Stop, which shuts off the engine at stoplights (to save fuel & smog).  As soon as you let off the brake, the engine starts up again.  It's a weird feeling that'll take some getting used to.  One of the things I remember about my Tesla test drive was, at stoplights, the car seemed to go completely dead.  It wasn't until you stepped on the accelerator that you realized the car was still active.

Car keeps track of how long you've been in Auto-Stop, and how much gas you've supposedly saved.

In just under a month of mostly stop-and-go driving I've been shut down at red lights for 1:12:46 and saved 0.567 gallons.

I've also averaged 25.7 mph, which isn't great.

I've driven the wife's car a lot these last couple of days, and that Auto Start-Stop is creepy. Can you imagine how quickly that feature could wear out a starter if you drove often in stop and go traffic?

NoCoPilot wrote:

You're selling your house???  Where you gonna go?

Probably not more than fifteen miles. Gonna stay around here. I've spent more than ninety percent of my time here since 1944, no good reason to change now. We're just moving back into town.

Had an offer on the house from the second couple that looked at it. They both work for Google in LA and are looking for a second home. They offered us 675, which pissed off the wife. I don't think they will get it.

_Howard wrote:

Last night, I had the opportunity to drive the wife's new Subaru for the first time at night. Fucking terrifying! The headlights would change from high beam  to low beam and vice versa, seemingly at random. The road I was on was very winding and changed altitude frequently. There were a few very tight (more than 90 degrees) turns. The fucking headlights switched high-to-low or low-to-high a lot. And they would change their aim right or left, rather than just straight ahead.

My sister says she "really likes" the automated high beam and steering responsive headlights on her new Crosstrek.

She says she just puts her high beams on high all the time, and lets the car decide when oncoming traffic needs them dimmed.

But that's my sister in a nutshell.

Twice now I've gone out to the garage and found something running inside the rear of the car. Sounds like a pump of some sort. Turn the ignition on and off again, and it stops.

Googled it.

Turns out it's not a faulty fuel pump, it's something called a DMTL, diagnostic module tank leak, that checks your fuel system for leaks by pumping a little air into it. Perfectly normal(?)

There's an intersection I go through every morning, most traffic lines up in the left turn lane to go to Boeing while I go straight through the intersection. This morning there was nobody else going straight, and as I approached the intersection the light turned green.

My car screeched to an emergency stop without me touching the brakes.

What happened was, one of the cars to my left put out such a cloud of steam / smoke / exhaust when he took off that my car saw this as a stopped vehicle, and went into collision avoidance mode.

It was rather jarring. Luckily there was nobody behind me either.

I’ve taken to driving in reverse everywhere. That way I can use the backup camera all the time and never have to look up from the screen.

24º out this morning.  We got about 2" of snow yesterday which turned to slush in the afternoon sun, then it froze hard last night to very, very slippery black ice.  I must've seen two dozen tire tracks going off the road on my way home from the pool.  If I'd known how bad it was I wouldn't have bothered.

Luckily, in low gear at 19 mph I made it both ways without incident.  Foresters are amazing.  I saw a lot of 4x4 trucks stuck.  2WD cars don't stand a chance.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Foresters are amazing.  I saw a lot of 4x4 trucks stuck.  2WD cars don't stand a chance.

You saw all those 4x4 trucks stuck because the owners falsely believed that their trucks have more traction than 2-wd trucks. Idiots.