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Monday, December 1, 2014

The Loaner


I have mixed emotions as November, and the use of The Loaner, comes to an end.  I am glad to be getting my SUV back; however, my back will miss the heated seats that come with The Loaner.
On the other hand, my SUV rides higher and has a higher head clearance, which makes entering and exiting the SUV much easier on my bad leg—and I don’t bang my head on my SUV doorframe.  The head banging I’ve endured this past month will teach me to not laugh at a friend bopping himself so hard he gave himself a concussion.  Also, my AC gets colder quicker, which keeps me happier (and others on the road alive when I'm flashin').  ;~)

By giving up The Loaner, I will miss the touch start and stop ignition. As long as the keys are nearby, I just touch and drive. What I won't miss, is  the way The Loaner eats things—especially keys. It ate The Loaner key fob (and my house keys) again yesterday. This time I remembered to power the seats all the way forward and backward—and found the fob right away. But still. It's pretty inconvenient, and sad, that I have to go through all that every time something comes up missing.
It’s also kind of sad that, after almost a month, I just figured out how to use the blinkers.

No—really.  For the past month I've had a time of it trying to work the blasted things. In my SUV, I flip the turn signal, make a lane change, then flip the turn signal back off—and it stays off. Not so in The Loaner. When I go to flip the signal back off, it changes to the opposite turn signal. I can't tell you how many times I've been driving around and wondered, "What is that clicking noise?" only to look down and see the turn signal was on. Sometimes I catch it pretty quick. Other times, not so fast. But it's really bad when I notice the signal is still flashing, and I attempt to turn it off, but only succeed in turning on the opposite signal—so I try to  correct that mistake, but it goes back to the first signal—which causes me to have to repeat the whole process all over again!  If you've seen a Grey Taurus flashing conflicting signals—making it appear the driver was incapable of deciding when, where, or which way they were going to turn—it was probably me.
If just now mastering the turn signals isn’t bad enough, I  still haven't really mastered the art of securely locking The Loaner.  I'll think I have it locked, only to check a door, and it'll pop right open. Other times, I'll have my hands full and go to open a back door, and it’ll be locked up tighter than a drum. And while it's great to have trunk space, I don't like my stuff shifting forward out of my reach.

I've kept my trips to a minimum this month—but I've still really missed the convenience of having my 6-disc CD player. I love listening to audio books but hate having to pull over to change discs.
And I don't like having the gas tank on the passenger side—and there being no gas cap. (How does that pass inspection? Used to be, if the gas cap seal didn’t  "pop" it would fail.)

When I give up The Loaner in just a few minutes, I know I'll miss the inside handles that I can hang a garment rod on. And the cool covered console cubby holes that conceal my stuff, but spring open at a touch.  And the backup camera—the picture is the best I’ve seen on a back-up camera….although I really like my SUVs back up beep better. And my SUV fuel gauge that tells me how many more miles I can drive on my current tank of gas—I can’t tell you how many times I’ve relied on it to plan fuel stops and potty breaks on trips.  My SUV also tells me what my current gas mileage per gallon is—I’m sure The Loaner has that feature as well—but I never found it.  The Loaner also had some really cool features I never activated—in-dash GPS, Bluetooth for my phone, Syncing, and a bunch of computer stuff way too savvy for me. The Loaner is a really great car. So much so, that I looked at trading in my SUV on one. But I need to get my monies worth out of the repairs I just made on the SUV.  Besides, I really  prefer my black leather seats to The Loaners tan leather seats….
But I really will miss The Loaners heated seats.facebook.com/marylou.robinson33

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