Tag: cars

Posted in Life

You’re early

Posted on by William Douthwaite

I thought I was doing the right thing. As the mileage on the new car passed nine thousand miles and the oil life percentage sunk to twenty percent, I made an appointment for service. I feared I had waited too long. But it turns out I acted too soon.

When I first started driving, oil changes came every 3,500 miles. As recently as 2003, that was the recommended service interval for our Chevy Traverse. However, in the world of Honda, the mileage lenthened to five thousand miles or so. That was nice, until a service manager told me to wait till the oil life percentage hit thirty before I brought it in. It took seven to eight thousand miles to hit that mark.

So when our newest car, a 2025, hit eight thousand miles, I though I was close. But the oil life was still at 50%. Okay, I guess I had more time. I checked it every week or so, and finally it go to thirty percent. I made an appointment and brought it in.

After I found my seat in the waiting room, the service representative came over to ask if the maintenance light had gone on.

I anwered, “No. But I figured I was at the right mileage.”

Unless the maintenance light comes on, Honda doesn’t want to see you for service. The service rep said, “I’ll have to see if we can get you in.”

When I asked for more information, he explained, “Sensors know your driving habits, and when you’ll need service.” In other words, the car will let me know when it’s time.

In a sense, here’s an example of artificial intellegence getting a foothold in my decision making process. The machine controls me. I respond to its prompts.

I suppose a self-driving car could take itself in for service. I would not be involved.

That’s a little scary. i used to change my own oil and filters. I used to do my own tuneup.

I’ve almost been replaced.

Posted in Life

Keepin’ ‘em shiny

Posted on by William Douthwaite

I arrived at the Honda dealer just as the service advisors were logging into their computers. After they took my van back to start working on a recall repair, I got a very nice, strong cup of coffee and found a high top table to sit at next to the sales area.

The salespeople don’t get in until about nine, so it was pretty quiet. As I sat, jotting down story ideas, a gentleman wandered through with a spray bottle and two microfiber cloths. He said, “‘Mornin’” as he did a quick detail on the vehicles on the showroom floor.

I said, “Good morning.” Then I added, “you wouldn’t think they’d get very dusty overnight.”

“You’d be surprised.”

It was a Monday morning, so he was probably wiping away a whole weekend’s worth of fingerprints, smudges, and dirt.

I wonder how many people touch the cars each day? Probably plenty. For some reason, fingers are drawn to smooth, shiny surfaces. They are a pleasure to touch. But it’s hard to keep them that way.

Some spend a lot of time and big bucks on car detailing to preserve that brand new look. Of course, it’s gone just a few miles down the road. Other cars look like they’ve never been washed.

Somewhere in between is probably the best I can do.

Posted in driving

Keep your distance

Posted on by William Douthwaite

If you look carefully, you’ll see that the light is red. There are two cars stopped ahead of me. And then there is this car just to my right, twenty-five feet from the intersection. As we wait, she doesn’t inch forward until the light turns to green. “Uh-oh,” I think to myself. I’ll bet she’s going to try to merge in my lane when we start moving.

But she doesn’t. I leave room, but she makes no move. I watch carefully, but she keeps going straight, even after I turn left at another light about a thousand feet ahead.

So, as I often do, I wonder, “What is going on here?”

  • Maybe she’s a super cautious driver. She wants to keep a safe distance from the intersection in case someone is crossing the street. Don’t you hate it when you have to walk around a car sticking it’s nose into the crosswalk?
  • She doesn’t want to tailgate. We all hate tailgaters, don’t we? Oh, wait, there’s no one ahead of her.
  • The obvious: she’s on the phone. Maybe she’s been on the phone, and still doesn’t notice that the people ahead of her drove away when the light turned green. Oblivious, she’s waiting through another cycle.
  • Did her car stall out? She could have been calling AAA at that moment. Cars break down in the worst possible situations, right?
  • Maybe she knows the people in the SUV ahead of me and was talking to them. The light is red, so she can’t go anywhere anyway.
  • She could be hallucinating. Maybe she sees two cars in front of her that no one else can see. Hmm.
  • Invisible cars ahead of her? The car’s automatic braking sensors knows there there. Stopped that car on a dime.
  • I’ve eaten in the car before. I remember driving a stick shift on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey, tossing a token for the toll, and eating a cup of blueberry yogurt on my way to a class a Rutgers. Maybe she doesn’t multitask well, and a snack distracted her.
  • Was she lost? Was she trying to get Google Maps to give her directions?
  • One more. It’s an malfunctioning autonomous car. There ‘s a bug in the software, so there she sits.

I never know what I’m going to see on the road.

Posted in Life

I guess we only need one car

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Marius Christensen on Unsplash

It’s been a while since we only had one car. Just about forty years to be exact. My wife and I each brought a car into the marriage and we’ve always had at least two. Until today.

With both of us working and three kids to raise, we drove off in directions more often than not. As a nurse and a pastor, my wife and I spent a lot of time driving to hospitals all over northeast Florida. When our three children attended three different schools, they needed rides to dance classes, band rehearsals, sports practices, and friends’ houses. When they learned to drive, we parked three cars in the driveway.

All of that has changed in retirement. Without daily trips to church, hospitals, nursing homes, and members’ homes, I drive a lot less than I used to. Most of the time, one car sits idly in the driveway. So why do we have two? Good question. Could we get by with just one car?

About half the homes in our neighborhood have more than two cars parked in the driveway. Few can squeeze a car into their junk-filled garage. My neighbor has two Corvettes in the garage, and another two cars in the driveway for him and his wife. Around the corner, another neighbor has four cars parked in a circular driveway, two of which haven’t budged in over two years. I believe single-car households are the exception rather than the rule.

Here is our strategy for owning just one car:

  • Keep and frequently check Google calendar to avoid conflicting appointments.
  • Work towards going to the grocery store once a week, rather than every day. The trick will be better lists and better planning. How often have you had to start a new shopping list as soon as you started putting away the groceries you just brought home from the store?
  • If we put our minds to it, we can bunch our errands together into one outing rather than several.
  • When I need something at the store or I want to go to the library, I can always ride my bike. Many of the places I drive are just a couple of miles away. In a pinch, there’s always Uber or Lyft. Or a neighbor.

Cutting car expenses in half is a welcome improvement in our budget. Gas, insurance, maintenance, and payments can consume large portions of our income. Or not, if we don’t have as many vehicles.

So we’ve got one car parked in the driveway. We’re going to give it a shot.

Posted in Life

Don’t ding our car

Posted on by William Douthwaite

We had a few hours to kill before our Airbnb was ready in Rowlett, TX, so we went to one of our favorite local downtown places, Bankhead Brewery. All of the street parking was filled, so I pulled into the gravel lot out back.

As I pulled into a spot, a couple was getting out of an Infinity SUV next to us. I was still getting used to the rental van, so I lingered a minute to make sure all the doors locked. The other couple walked away towards the restaurant, but kept looking back at us. A better word would be “glared.” Especially the woman. She gave us the evil eye as if to say, “If you ding our car, buddy, we’re going at it!”

I double-checked my parking and we were fine. I was right in the middle of my spot. My wife could open her door all the way without touching their not-that-new vehicle. Still, we got several more glares as we followed them to the restaurant.

After we got inside and sat down, I went back out to get my wife’s reading glasses. As stepped away, she said, “You might want to move the van further away.” I agreed and repositioned the van two more feet away from theirs before I rummaged through a backpack for the readers.

After lunch, we walked back towards the van, and saw they moved the SUV out front to the street parking far way from this reckless driver’s parking lot antics. I asked, “Did they finish before us?” My wife answered, “No, I saw them sitting by the front window. They weren’t eating, just drinking.” It wouldn’t be hard to spend the afternoon day drinking at Bankhead. They have 16 of their own on tap every day.

So maybe, just maybe, they were worried that they might ding our van when they went to leave the brewery. I should try and explain everything in the best possible way, right?

I’ll try.

Posted in Life

Three and counting

Posted on by William Douthwaite

“So, are you down to one vehicle now?”

“Three.”

Okay, that caught me completely off guard. My wife and I had been talking about when we might downsize from two cars in the driveway to one. How often did we go two different places at the same time? Not as often as we did when we were both working. Wouldn’t it be sweet to only have to fuel up, insure, and maintain a single car?

He had retired a few years before and his wife was newly retired. Now they traveled together to visit family, run errands, and meet friends (like us) for lunch. They told inspiring stories of how they frugally learned to live simply yet richly in this new chapter of their life.

The fall colors were peaking on a warmish fall day as we walked around a lake. I should have remembered I was venturing onto dangerously thin ice when I assumed, “You must be down to one vehicle.”

“Three. And I think I’m going to buy a tractor.”

We’ve owned three cars in the past. We live in a town with no public transportation, so we had no choice but to drive everywhere. My wife and I would both head out in our cars for work, after saying, “Goodbye” to our children as one of them drove off to high school.

Three cars? One was a small pickup truck he had owned for nearly twenty years. That wasn’t going anywhere. Another smaller sedan was fine for running around town, but certainly wasn’t reliable enough for longer trips. So they needed a newer car as well.

A tractor? They lived on an acreage in western North Carolina. They had to maintain their own half-mile gravel driveway. They were also tearing down some old dog kennels, moving firewood closer to the house as winter approached, and dragging a gazebo to a different spot in the yard. Besides, he might have to dig a hole one day. Of course he needed a tractor.

My next-door neighbor and his wife have two Corvettes in their garage and two smaller cars parked in the driveway. Another neighbor has two vans and an SUV for the two of them. Two houses up from us, four SUVs are parked in the driveway.

I’m pretty sure my family only owned one car for years. My dad traveled to work in Philadelphia on the train, so we only needed one station wagon to haul everyone around. When my dad got a new job, he bought a second car for his commute. It was a yellow Ford Maverick with distinctive rusty trim. Once we three kids were grown and gone, they downsized to one Ford (my dad was a Ford fan) Tempo station wagon. They drove so few miles they changed the oil based on the calendar rather than the odometer.

One day we’ll decide one car or SUV or truck is enough. We’ll just have to decide what to own. Maybe we need something big enough to cart a lot of grandkids around in. Or maybe a sporty-two seater to zip around in. An electric vehicle? Something autonomous? We’ll see.