Is you car talking to you?

I really like car shopping.  I know, some people hate it but I love it.  Having said that, I also love the FREE time you get after the car is paid off but it’s roadworthy and it will be for a long time to come.  My last car was a Ford Explorer and I traded it in with 309,000 miles on it.  It was in such good shape that one of the mechanics at the dealership bought it for himself before we’d left the car lot.

I think I learned this from Dave Ramsey, who is NOT a fan of car payments.  According to Ramsey, when you are driving to the car dealer with $3,000 in your pocket for the down-payment, you’re driving past 3 or 4 cars that are for sale for $3,000 or less. Buy one of them, save your money and never have a car payment.  The point of the story is that my car now has 274,398 miles on it.  I’m planning to blow past that 309,000 of my last car but who knows?

But it’s starting to send me messages.  Some of which crack me up.   I think I showed you this one a while back.  The Low Oil Pressure alarm – that upon investigation – I found out, it is almost always the sensor that has gone bad.  Not anything to do with the oil pressure.

But this is the fun one.  Over the last few years, you’ve heard the catch phrase, “You had ONE job…“.  That’s exactly what popped into my head when I saw this. on my dash.

Camera is Unavailable.  What is Camera doing that it can’t be called upon right now to perform its one and only duty?   You’re the backup camera.  This car can go for days without your help but as I was backing out of a parking spot at Tractor Supply, here was another alarm.  As you can see, it also says to “Contact the dealership”.  Well, I happen to know that particular “dealership” is now a field in Idaho where Dan Weibold Ford used to be.

One other thing my car does is to close the entire screen of vital information and then to say it is, “Syncing”.   That would be good but after that is done, you might expect the GPS on board to be updated.  Nope.  I guess that’s a lot to hope for to have it update the obsolete software.  The process can take up to 30 minutes to “Sync” but it still doesn’t recognize new businesses or streets or anything NOT found in the original GPS data.  But it loves to tell you, “I need a minute”.

My little “Hoopty” pickup has 210,000 miles on it now and may forever unless I get a speedometer cable.  It too is talking to me.  The speedometer was making an awful noise on cold mornings.  Then suddenly, it wasn’t.  Did it heal?  No, it broke.  Does your ride talk to you?

By the way, once again when making my weekly run to the Livingston Sanitary Landfill on Saturday, the guy in the next stall said, “I like your truck man”, to which I said, “It’s a lot of fun.  I bought it NEW in 1990 and I’ve been running it into the ground ever since”.   But here it comes again.  He came over just before I left to be the 30th person to ask, “Do you want to sell it?”    It’s a total beater but I think people are expecting to buy it for $300 just as a backup work truck or something.  So I just said no.  #31 to ask if I want to sell it can’t be far behind.