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"Current" Events
Jan. 24th, 2019 09:28 pmIn a little over 72 hours, our electric Smart Car will be ours no more. It's been a long strange trip this week.
I mentioned a while back that a friend had looked into a plug-in hybrid from Hyundai. Turns out that look-in was way back in June. The actual car we looked at, for the first time two weekends ago, didn't even exist at that point. Ann finally had to go with something else late last year- but then earlier this month, the dealer called her- it was in. She remembered our interest and we looked. This week, after she decided not to try a trade-in of an almost brand-new VW, we looked more seriously. And last night, we sealed the deal.
That's not the actual car, either, but it's close. It has two separate engines- gas with a 10-gallon tank and a usual 600-mile range when you're using the battery for some of the drive, and a battery that can go close to 50 miles entirely on its own. What you don't see there is important: the plug is on the driver's side, unlike both of Eleanor's electric Smarts, which required you to wrap the charging coil around the entire rear of the car. Also not there to be seen: the charging cord itself, which looks to be better designed.
It's got a radio/climate menu that's more complex than a Windows desktop, a gagillion electronic gadgets we'll never use, but probably the most important thing, after two years of just two-seater cars? A back seat and a real trunk. Which means we can travel, in relative comfort and with a dog, to see the kids:)
There are about 6500 total in rebates on the thing from the IRS (off 2019 taxes when filed) and NYS (a direct payment to the dealer), so that brings it to pretty close to the cost of my gas Smart. The battery is guaranteed for life, and we own it (Smart makes you lease the battery separately either way); the car itself has a 10/100,000 warranty on the big stuff. Friends with Hyundais have spoken highly of their reliability and service. The payment will be more than the combined lease-battery cost on Ziggy, but we've done some soul-searching and have found some things to cut that will really not be sacrifices- and this time, an artificially low payment will not just have to be rejiggered in three years as we did three years ago.
I knew we were done for when I named her. We had a long series in alphabetical order, from Bessie in 1984 to Kermit in 2013. Our two current cars have broken that: Ziggy replaced Iggy as Eleanor's electric, and mine looks like Iron Man's suit, so I went with JARVIS. This one is called a Hyundai Ioniq. So I went with "Alanis." Yes, Morrisette.
( Spoiler )
Financing was quickly approved. We do the paperwork Saturday, then pick her up Monday morning, leaving Ziggy to be sent back to Mercedes for last rites. (More about THAT in a moment.) Hyundai is giving us the final couple of payments on his lease to send in along with any damage they claim. It's been a fun six-year run, but when Mercedes USA decided to abandon its commitment to these cars, they made it virtually impossible for us to remain loyal to the brand.
----
In the middle of a dining-table discussion of the details with the dealer last night, our electric theme took another unfortunate jolt. Shortly before we were ready to hang up, Pepper heard something- probably a squirrel cracking a loose branch somewhere in Montana- and jumped apopletically toward the door out of the dining room. In the process, she tripped over the power cord connected to Eleanor's laptop and wrestled it to the ground. The computer is fine, but the power supply got gorked. This particular Lenovo has a USB-looking connection on the laptop end, and it's now the second to have literally gotten bent out of shape. The replacement one was not salvageable, but I found the original which does work, if a little wonkily, and I ordered another one from Amazon which should be here tomorrow. While I wait for those (and the final Harry Potter film so we can finish our binge), I can also run over to Lensgrinders and have them reshape my glasses, which fell off my desk today not once but twice, the second time really getting run over:P
----
Which gets us back to the final aspect of this- the piece de , yes, resistance from our former car dealer. (There's a pun thread on Facebook: "Ohm my." "Resistance is futile- we will assimilate you in any capacitor we choose." "If the car breaks down, take the Universal Serial Bus." "Watt?!?" "I don't know." "Third valence level!")
Eleanor was among the first local adopters of the all-electric Smart for Two back in 2013. The salesperson really bonded with her over it- Kelli loved her take-home electric, and seemed thrilled that Eleanor chose immediately to personalize Iggy with a giant yellow mustache on his not so giant hood. Three years later, when Iggy Became Ziggy, Eleanor simply switched out the one hood for the other. This time, though, she knew she'd have to do something about the decoration before we turned him in, so even before the sale this week, she checked to see if she could order a replacement hood. Answer: nein. At least not in the same color as her previous two cars. We really sense that they just don't care about us as customers because they know we're certainly not jonesing for the S-series panzers they make most of their marks off. So, meh- she asked about just getting a neutral-colored one and spray-painting it herself, and/or painting over the 'stache.
Once the new car deal got done, though, it took on some urgency, since the car has to be back in Mercedes's possession before they'll even talk about "da damages." So this morning, she called again- and at first got a massive runaround. First, they said it would have to be done at their designated collision shop, and done before they could quote us on the final "owe" on the car. The dude at said shop was a complete asshat, who gave the completely opposite story- he couldn't quote or do anything until the dealer had authorized it, which they wouldn't until they had it back. Which gave him every incentive to stick us with an above-retail bill for the thing. Finally, Eleanor talked again with Kelli- who went over the the Mercedes side of things during her original lease and is now a fairly-high mucky-muck in the whole dealership. She sympathized with the way Mercedes is treating its (let's be real here) former customers, and gave some assurances that, as long as we pay for a new hood, we won't get stuck with anything massive for repainting it. They really have little to complain about: they're getting the car back with barely half of its mileage allowance spoken for, no accidents other than the teeniest of bumper-bumps a couple of years ago, and maintenance done on it religiously. This is also the dealer who couldn't find snow tires in Buffalo for my car in November ahead of the first real snows- and the one who, when the plug on Eleanor's charging coil started getting loose, offered us no choice other than to spend $1200 on a entire new charger. (We fixed it for way less material and cost than that, just as Eleanor told them flat out that the "labor" on replacing the hood would, for her, be under ten minutes with a single screwdriver. Even they finally laughed at that.)
----
While Eleanor was dealing with most of all that today, I was mostly in Rochester. Unlike the last OMGStorm which wasn't, the driving this morning was almost as bad, and yet not a peep about it from the fearmongers. One more workday, some cleaning out of our garage on Saturday (this car's gonna need more, ummm, SPACE!) and then Alanis comes home. We'll each have one key fob in our pocket, and the other one hopefully not setting the panic button off again! (Mine did that at Wegmans tonight. So embarrassing. Probably an electrical problem, but I'd better not go on about it. I know your time is short.)
I mentioned a while back that a friend had looked into a plug-in hybrid from Hyundai. Turns out that look-in was way back in June. The actual car we looked at, for the first time two weekends ago, didn't even exist at that point. Ann finally had to go with something else late last year- but then earlier this month, the dealer called her- it was in. She remembered our interest and we looked. This week, after she decided not to try a trade-in of an almost brand-new VW, we looked more seriously. And last night, we sealed the deal.
That's not the actual car, either, but it's close. It has two separate engines- gas with a 10-gallon tank and a usual 600-mile range when you're using the battery for some of the drive, and a battery that can go close to 50 miles entirely on its own. What you don't see there is important: the plug is on the driver's side, unlike both of Eleanor's electric Smarts, which required you to wrap the charging coil around the entire rear of the car. Also not there to be seen: the charging cord itself, which looks to be better designed.
It's got a radio/climate menu that's more complex than a Windows desktop, a gagillion electronic gadgets we'll never use, but probably the most important thing, after two years of just two-seater cars? A back seat and a real trunk. Which means we can travel, in relative comfort and with a dog, to see the kids:)
There are about 6500 total in rebates on the thing from the IRS (off 2019 taxes when filed) and NYS (a direct payment to the dealer), so that brings it to pretty close to the cost of my gas Smart. The battery is guaranteed for life, and we own it (Smart makes you lease the battery separately either way); the car itself has a 10/100,000 warranty on the big stuff. Friends with Hyundais have spoken highly of their reliability and service. The payment will be more than the combined lease-battery cost on Ziggy, but we've done some soul-searching and have found some things to cut that will really not be sacrifices- and this time, an artificially low payment will not just have to be rejiggered in three years as we did three years ago.
I knew we were done for when I named her. We had a long series in alphabetical order, from Bessie in 1984 to Kermit in 2013. Our two current cars have broken that: Ziggy replaced Iggy as Eleanor's electric, and mine looks like Iron Man's suit, so I went with JARVIS. This one is called a Hyundai Ioniq. So I went with "Alanis." Yes, Morrisette.
( Spoiler )
Financing was quickly approved. We do the paperwork Saturday, then pick her up Monday morning, leaving Ziggy to be sent back to Mercedes for last rites. (More about THAT in a moment.) Hyundai is giving us the final couple of payments on his lease to send in along with any damage they claim. It's been a fun six-year run, but when Mercedes USA decided to abandon its commitment to these cars, they made it virtually impossible for us to remain loyal to the brand.
----
In the middle of a dining-table discussion of the details with the dealer last night, our electric theme took another unfortunate jolt. Shortly before we were ready to hang up, Pepper heard something- probably a squirrel cracking a loose branch somewhere in Montana- and jumped apopletically toward the door out of the dining room. In the process, she tripped over the power cord connected to Eleanor's laptop and wrestled it to the ground. The computer is fine, but the power supply got gorked. This particular Lenovo has a USB-looking connection on the laptop end, and it's now the second to have literally gotten bent out of shape. The replacement one was not salvageable, but I found the original which does work, if a little wonkily, and I ordered another one from Amazon which should be here tomorrow. While I wait for those (and the final Harry Potter film so we can finish our binge), I can also run over to Lensgrinders and have them reshape my glasses, which fell off my desk today not once but twice, the second time really getting run over:P
----
Which gets us back to the final aspect of this- the piece de , yes, resistance from our former car dealer. (There's a pun thread on Facebook: "Ohm my." "Resistance is futile- we will assimilate you in any capacitor we choose." "If the car breaks down, take the Universal Serial Bus." "Watt?!?" "I don't know." "Third valence level!")
Eleanor was among the first local adopters of the all-electric Smart for Two back in 2013. The salesperson really bonded with her over it- Kelli loved her take-home electric, and seemed thrilled that Eleanor chose immediately to personalize Iggy with a giant yellow mustache on his not so giant hood. Three years later, when Iggy Became Ziggy, Eleanor simply switched out the one hood for the other. This time, though, she knew she'd have to do something about the decoration before we turned him in, so even before the sale this week, she checked to see if she could order a replacement hood. Answer: nein. At least not in the same color as her previous two cars. We really sense that they just don't care about us as customers because they know we're certainly not jonesing for the S-series panzers they make most of their marks off. So, meh- she asked about just getting a neutral-colored one and spray-painting it herself, and/or painting over the 'stache.
Once the new car deal got done, though, it took on some urgency, since the car has to be back in Mercedes's possession before they'll even talk about "da damages." So this morning, she called again- and at first got a massive runaround. First, they said it would have to be done at their designated collision shop, and done before they could quote us on the final "owe" on the car. The dude at said shop was a complete asshat, who gave the completely opposite story- he couldn't quote or do anything until the dealer had authorized it, which they wouldn't until they had it back. Which gave him every incentive to stick us with an above-retail bill for the thing. Finally, Eleanor talked again with Kelli- who went over the the Mercedes side of things during her original lease and is now a fairly-high mucky-muck in the whole dealership. She sympathized with the way Mercedes is treating its (let's be real here) former customers, and gave some assurances that, as long as we pay for a new hood, we won't get stuck with anything massive for repainting it. They really have little to complain about: they're getting the car back with barely half of its mileage allowance spoken for, no accidents other than the teeniest of bumper-bumps a couple of years ago, and maintenance done on it religiously. This is also the dealer who couldn't find snow tires in Buffalo for my car in November ahead of the first real snows- and the one who, when the plug on Eleanor's charging coil started getting loose, offered us no choice other than to spend $1200 on a entire new charger. (We fixed it for way less material and cost than that, just as Eleanor told them flat out that the "labor" on replacing the hood would, for her, be under ten minutes with a single screwdriver. Even they finally laughed at that.)
----
While Eleanor was dealing with most of all that today, I was mostly in Rochester. Unlike the last OMGStorm which wasn't, the driving this morning was almost as bad, and yet not a peep about it from the fearmongers. One more workday, some cleaning out of our garage on Saturday (this car's gonna need more, ummm, SPACE!) and then Alanis comes home. We'll each have one key fob in our pocket, and the other one hopefully not setting the panic button off again! (Mine did that at Wegmans tonight. So embarrassing. Probably an electrical problem, but I'd better not go on about it. I know your time is short.)