Say Good-bye.

Well,   the time had come. 



Out with this:

And in with this:

Travelling Companion and I had been thinking of parting company with the Mercedes for a while now,  and decided to pull the trigger a few days ago.

The thing is,  it's an 11 (2011),  not that that should be an issue,  but there have been a couple "issues",  shall we say?   And now that we had been problem free for a time,  we thought we'd 'get',  while the gettin'  was good.   So to speak.

I mean,  I've bought both new and used vehicles over the years,  and I'm pretty sure I've never dropped as much dough on a used vehicle (after the fact in repairs,  that is) as we did with the Merc.
I mean,  tires or a battery is one thing,   but the air conditioning compressor crapped out at some point a couple years ago,  thereby leaking fluid onto the serpentine belt,  meaning they both had to be replaced,  etc.

Then,  and this was before we bought the truck,  the damned thing wouldn't start one day,  and it turns out it had to go to the Stealership to have the "ignition module"  replaced.   Of course,  you may have noticed that folks who have Mercedes as their favourite vehicle,  always make sure to have two or three sitting in the driveway,  just so they'll have a backup when one of them craps out.
Had to rent a car for that one,  as they needed the car for several days,  and far be it from them to have a courtesy vehicle. 
I was not pleased.

The "new" car is a '15,  so it's not *that*  new,  but first of all,  it's a Toyota,  and secondly,  being somewhat newer,  it has a few gadgets that we did not have on the Mercedes,  such as a back-up camera and usb ports and such.  Kind of like the truck.

Now I'll admit,  the Merc was a great little car on the handling end of things,  but I suspect we won't be slaloming through any mountain roads any time soon,  so having a little softer ride with the Camry works for me.  T.C. hasn't quite come over to my way of thinking,  but I suspect she'll be OK with it in due time.

Oh and,the "4-matic" thing was pretty awesome in snow,  as long as you also had winter tires I suspect,  but I also think it was the reason our fuel economy never was all that great?

The Camry takes regular gas,  whereas the Merc took "high test".   I'd go as far as the mid-grade,  but wasn't willing to pay more.



So I mean,  if you were to lease a brand new one and take it back at the end of three years?  Well,  maybe that would work.  But we don't lease vehicles anymore.  Not financially sound,  unless you're running a business and it works to your advantage tax wise.   The other thing that we won't be doing anymore?  Getting another Mercedes.


I'm out.

Thanks for stopping by.

Keep your stick on the ice.

If you have a feather.

You could knock me over with it.

For the last couple of days I haven’t had too much to say except that,  I really should make sure to re-read previous posts before even opening Live Writer, since I was just a wee bit repetitive recently. 

I beg your indulgence.

I was just now out in “the shop” mucking around with the end cabinet, installing shelf supports,  that kind of thing, when the phone rang.

Much easier done if it’s on its side.

 

Having that handy dandy “call display” out there is certainly the way to go.  And who was it?  Why, it was the yet unnamed dealership where the defective part was installed.

Some lady.  Said her name.  “Leslie”?  “Lucy”? 

Doesn’t matter.

Had some paperwork in front of her.  Wanted to know if I would prefer to come and pick up my money,  or have a cheque sent to the house? 

Yes, I’m not kidding.  They came through.

I do recall reading something about the boss wanting to change their “corporate culture”.  I guess it’s started to trickle down.

Of course,  since I’d really rather not have to go back there,  I opted for the “send it to my house” program.  I did have to eat the extra cost of the tow,  but that was my choice.  I suppose I could have pressed them for the 27 bucks,  but sometimes you just need to call it a day.

She also mentioned in passing that the “regional warranty manager”  was by,  and had given the “go-ahead”.  See now,  this is why it costs you so much to go to these places.  How many freakin’ managers do they have?

 

 

So I’ll be checking the mail. 

 

Bit of an interesting day here at the Ponderosa,  weather wise.  Had some thunder and lightening,  along with a couple torrential downpours.

I hear they had a great night on the water last night.  I wasn’t out. 

Instead,  T.C. and I had stopped by St. Mary’s Hospital in Kitchener yesterday afternoon to check on my oldest brother who it turns out,  had had a mild heart attack some time towards the end of last week. 

 

 

Hard to pin it down in terms of when exactly things started to go south, since the symptoms were at first rather vague.  Not feeling quite right,  but then some pressure in his chest.  Took himself to the emergency in Goderich,  and they kept him there.

The heart Doc basically said,  “Usually when guys have that situation,  they keel over.”   I’m paraphrasing of course,  but that about sums it up.

Anyway,  that’s where we spent our afternoon.  They had him there for an Angiogram,  and it turns out that he’ll need bypass surgery.  Luckily enough,  even though he has a couple nearly complete blockages,  there was no damage to the heart muscle.   They put him on Plavix and ASA right away,  and he’ll have to stop taking that five days before the surgery, so it could be a couple weeks. 

Nothing much else new here at the Ponderosa. 

Well,  I did take care of a mouse that came out from under a cabinet in the shed the other day.  Gave me a bit of a start.  Hate when they dash out like that.

I have zero tolerance for them.  They crap everywhere, chew on things for no reason that’s apparent to me anyway,  and could very easily stay the hell outdoors.  It’s nice out!  What are you doing in my shed? 

 

That’s it.  I’m empty.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

The jury is out.

Well,  there has been some “fun” over the last few days with car issues.  I really and truly think there wouldn’t have been any problems at all if we had stayed completely clear of the GM dealership here in town and simply ignored the dire warnings having to do with the THREE recalls on my daughter’s Saturn.  

Oh,  and there used to be a joke that Saturn stood for “Supposedly American, though unfortunately really Nissan.”   Too bad that wasn’t really the case.  But let’s not get all the die hard GM fans worked up into a lather. 

One of the recalls had to do with some sort of potentially dangerous situation with the steering/ignition assembly,  and apparently people have died when their cars have suddenly quit working and flown off the road. Something to that effect.

So fine,  don’t really want my kid ending up dead at the side of the road,  so we took it to the Stealership.

And,  this is how it looked the next day.

 

Such a great way to spend my Friday morning. 

Not.

Something up with that steering alright.   Too bad it was working just fine until the dealer…er,  Stealership got a hold of it.

Naturally,  (in keeping with their Corporate Culture)  the Service Manager didn’t think the coffee grinder kind of noise it was making every time the steering wheel was turned had ANY thing to do with their fine outstanding work,  so I naturally had it taken to a mechanic I could trust.

I mean,  why would I take it back to them??

 

Little plug here:

Took it to these guys.  SWC Automotive.   Highly recommended.

They’ve done service work on the Merc.  Didn’t take all day,  like the Mercedes Stealership,  and the bill was about a third of what it would have been had I gone there.

But I digress.

 

So sure enough,  here’s the part they replaced under the recall.

And it is indeed “to do with the power steering”.  It’s not supposed to do this:

 

Oops.

I think that shaft needs to be a little beefier.  D’ya think?

That’s what was making that coffee grinder noise.  It was the motor trying to spin the shaft.

So I paid a little visit to the Stealership this morning with their part in a box,  and the invoice that I had to take care of on Saturday.  Good thing the boys at SWC were willing to sort it out on Saturday.  Otherwise I’d be doing some chauffeuring,  or there would be a whole lot of scrambling for rides.

 

Anyway,  we’ll see what comes of it.  I’m certainly not going to try and tell them how to run their little empire. 

Oh and look,  let’s all “Buy American”.    Seems that “American” is spelled,  “JAPAN”.  

Wasn’t when I went to school.  Some sort of new spelling.

 

Stay tuned.