Night Riders

There was a barely audible clunk as the stuck pad released its grip on the rotor. Twenty years of recall memory allows a smooth clutch engagement as we back out of the garage. At first, the air feels heavy and stagnant, but as we turn the first corner, the nighttime cool surrounds us. We are lucky that in less than a mile we are are barreling down some lightly traveled two lane blacktop.

On the final leg of our journey Donna, says, “I’m sure glad we didn’t trade this in.” I replied, “That was really never an option.”

While the Sonata is an awfully nice car, it will never be able to hold a candle to the Miata in pure driving fun.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1006

Love Shack Bay-bee!

With appologies to the B-52’s:
I got me a car, it’s as big as a whale
and we’re headin’ on down
To the Love Shack
I got me a Hyundai, it seats about 20
So hurry up and bring your jukebox money

The dealer is taking care of titling and registering the car, but I have to pay the Personal Property Tax on the car in South Carolina. I called the Tax Auditor this afternoon and asked how much the tax would be and after I gave him the VIN number he told me it would be $420. Which is about what I expected (the last record I have for the Emperor is $303 in 2006.) When we got down to the Auditor’s office after work the Clerk who entered my information and generated my bill, said it would be $330 and pointed me down the hall to the Treasurer’s office to pay it. Why the $90 discrepancy in my favor? I didn’t question it, but had it gone the other way…

After dinner we drove over to Augusta to drop off the tax receipt at the dealer so they can do what they need to get me a plate. When I got back in the car I noticed my zipper was down. Fortunately my un-tucked T-shirt hung low enough. Donna asked did I think anyone in the dealership noticed, she was worried that they might have thought we were fooling around in the car. Maybe I will call the Sonata, Love Shack instead of Purple Whale.

Wash Day

We did three loads of clothes and I did two cars. The Miata has needed a good washing since before pine pollen season, but I put it off until everything pollen-wise has dropped or drifted around. Then I washed the Sonata to get the north Georgia (where it is still spring) pine pollen off of it. Thankfully there is that shark fin satellite antenna in the middle of the roof so I could judge if needed longer arms or step stool to get the whole car clean.

And while that should have been today’s ?Holy Crap This Car Is Big? story, it was trumped by our filling up the gas tank tonight. We had filled it up Friday when it was still half full, but it was now getting down to under an 1/8 of a tank. It holds 17 gallons which is 1-1/2 Miata tanks, so this time it was the most we had ever spent of gas ever. The 14.77 gallons that went in there came to over $50.

I didn’t pay attention to the mileage at Friday’s fill up, but today I did. It took 10.1 gallons then and now it took 14.8, there were 753 miles on the car, and I’m going to assume that they topped the tank when they sold it to us at 29 miles, so the gas mileage was 29 MPG. Not bad for a car rated at 22/35 (26 combined) considering it spent quite a bit of time being slogged through curvy mountain passes.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1005

Georgia State Park Geocaching

On the trip back from Robbinsville, North Carolina today we knocked off three more Georgia State Park caches, along with 2 Georgia Counties and one DeLorme page. We walked a little over 6 miles total in the three parks and in one place I thought for a minute we were in an Enchanted Forest. The trail kept going up and up and up, so it seemed like they had figured out how to make a loop trail uphill for the whole length.

We’ve had the Sonata now for a whole three days and there are 731 miles on it, 702 of which are ours. At this pace in the first year of ownership we will accumulate 88,938 miles.

Today’s “Holy Crap This Car Is Big” story came at a driver exchange in a Burger King parking lot in Commerce, Georgia. At the previous driver change when Donna gave up the driver’s seat to me, she didn’t move the seat at all and I had to squeeze in. So this time she thought she would do me a big favor and move the seat all the way down and back. Trouble was, once she got the seat in that position, she couldn’t reach the door handle anymore to let herself out.

Ain’t No Miata

But it ain’t half bad. After a brief visit with my sister and her husband in Hendersonville (where the temperature was 48°) and eating at our favorite pizza place, West One, we headed west to do a little research for our fall Gap Trip with the Miata Club. When we got to Robbinsville it was 30 degrees warmer than H-ville. After reconnoitering a couple restaurants, eating dinner in one, and a couple of motels, we decided to take an evening drive in the mountains.

The Sonata handles pretty well for a big front wheel drive car, the 45 series tires help, but being an automatic transmission it isn’t nearly as responsive as the Miata in the twisties. We didn’t attempt Deal’s Gap proper, but did run up 129 to the Tail of the Dragon Store, head back south on 28 past Fontana Dam and then cut across 143 back into town. The Sonata has a slap stick shift lever that you can use to manually shift the 5 speed transmission, but its placement is too awkward for good functionality. But the SE version we bought has paddle shifters on the steering wheel, so I thought I would try using them on 129 when the road turns sharply uphill at the Fugitive Dam. It lasted maybe all of 3 minutes. Donna told me she wasn’t so distracted by my activation of the turn signals when down shifting, so much as the wipers swooshing by on the dry windshield when I hit the stalk instead of the paddle when attempting to shift up a gear. I think I’m going to need more practice at that…

Don’t be alarmed at the lack of atop count, I’ve decided to not add it to the bottom of the post when the Miata hasn’t been driven on that day.

Already?

Today Donna had an appointment to see the dermatologist about having a wart removed off the back of her hand. Last night we practiced driving the big new car downtown, so she could find the place. And even though she was leery of a couple downtown streets with parking on both sides, leaving a narrow path through the middle, she was game to try driving to her appointment.

I felt bad about this because I know how much she a) doesn’t like to drive anyway, b) didn’t want to drive it until it got its first door ding or scratch and c) would be so afraid of hurting the new car she might actually hit something trying to be too careful. Because I had come to work the 1/2 hour early with her all week, I figured I had built up enough extra time that I would just drive her to the doctor’s and sit outside trying to familiarize myself with the 380 page owner’s manual.

When I got to the office building where the doctor’s office is, there were two spots in a row open (thank goodness, as I wouldn’t dare try and parallel park this beast) so I pulled in and eased into the second spot. Only thing is the Sonata is a tad bit wider than a Miata so I managed to hit the curb with the right front wheel. =8O To add insult to injury when Donna got out of the car she had to come back and tell me to pull up as the car’s butt was a foot or so in the parking spot behind me.

I did a nice job, the wheel is scarred for about 3 inches around the diameter, though the clear coat, through the paint and into the aluminum. I called our salesman this afternoon and asked a hypothetical question, “Who would they call, if say, a wheel on a car being delivered was scratched up coming off the truck or something?” He said, “Already?” “Yep,” I replied, “less than 24 hours in.” I told him I was thinking of suing the car dealership for mental anguish caused by their selling me a car I was obviously unable to handle.” He laughed and gave me the name of who they call when they need a wheel repaired.

The name of the Sonata’s color is Indigo Blue Pearl and it is an appropriate name. In the shade it looks like a dark blue, but when you look at it in the bright sunlight there is a definite purple cast. I was thinking of calling the car “Purple Whale” because of its size compared the the Emperor, but that is the name of a form of the drug ecstasy. I can’t see any references to that past 2009, so it might be OK. I can even get one of these cute bath buddies to tack to the dash.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1004

Done Deal

This was a much more pleasant experience today than Monday evening. The only two negatives were a) something that I knew would happen and b) something I should have expected.

a) You know how they say that for every year a human ages, a dog ages seven, well car dealer time is just the inverse. When they tell you it will be just a minute, that maybe what it feels like for them, but in car buyer time it is seven minutes. When they tell you it will just take a few minutes, you think that means 5 to 10 minutes, it will actually take 35 minutes to a little more than an hour.

b) When the deal was made I said I will give you X dollars down and I want the payment to be X dollars a month. After you have signed on the dotted line of nearly as many pieces of paper as you do at a house closing, the last one is the actual loan agreement. And just like you agreed upon the payment is X dollars a month, but there are some numbers to the right of the decimal point. The digits are carefully calculated to be not too big to make it seem like they are trying to add a whole extra buck to the payment, but big enough to amount to something for the dealer. They took the page right out of Walmart’s playbook, the payment is $XXX.88

Started up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1004