The repair shop put me in a VW CC, a sporty little sedan that somehow has an enormous trunk -- I mean, you could put an MG Midget in there. I think I would have known I was in a German car once I sat down in the cockpit even without the VW logo on the dash: there are three (3) clocks visible from behind the wheel!
It's very pretty, sleek and low-slung. The bucket seats are covered in soft leather, but it's already making my back act up. Mostly the getting in and out, I think. Possibly in part the driving a very nice car that isn't mine in traffic without the height and sightlines of the Lexus SUV-in-a-party-dress.
That said, it corners like a go-kart and putters along with a Jetsons-esque burble at fifty mph more smoothly than most cars I have driven did at thirty-five. All of the controls fall naturally under your hand and other than the futuristic keyless key (the fob is the key*), there aren't any surprises to be had in operating the car.
This is an automated posting because I need to get into work early tomorrow. With any luck, my car will be done and I'll need to drive out to pick it up. It's a long drive and is likely to take more than my usual lunch break.
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* Although there is, in fact, a key hidden inside the fob for emergencies. Oh, it won't start the car, that's not how the keyless ignition works, but it will unlock the doors if the battery goes flat. Oh yeah, German car.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
9 comments:
My Honda Fit has the same key arrangement, so that isn't uniquely German. One door lock, and a hidden place to use the key to unlock the transmission if it needs a tow.
"Do not try and use the key, that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth...there is no key. Then you'll see that it is not the key that you use, it is only yourself."
Thank you to The Matrix.
The last time we used the key to actually unlock the car door was when the battery ran low because I hadn't noticed the interior light was left on.
We owned a VW Rabbit, and that's why no VWs will ever find a home in our garage.
The Fiat 850 Spider we owned was more fun to drive, and only broke down a little bit more often than the Rabbit!
I do confess to wanting a Zed 3, but that might only be lust.
Faraday cage,please, for the key fob when not in the car with you.
Your writing classes must be paying off 'SUV-in-a-party-dress' indeed.
Mrs. Drang's Ford has the same key fob arrangement. My Dodge (which was hers, when we got it) has a fob-like device which must still be inserted in a slot and turned in order to start the car. Which makes me wonder why?
For the truly paranoid, a nightmare: A few years ago, the owner of local high-end automotive sound shop had his car modified to lock/unlock and start with an RFID chip, which he had embedded in his hand.
Query to Drang: what will happen when he sells it.
The keyless ignition seems to be the new Thing for most cars. The Impala I had to rent for a couple of days had it also.
One thing I realized from the Impala I do want: that rear view camera that activates when you shift into Reverse.
We'll be forced to have the rear-view camera on reverse before too long. GM convinced California and then the Federal DOT that backup lights, in addition to their essential warning function, could also be great courtesy lights -- so that you can see the puddles behind it after parking and shutting it off.
Therefore nowadays people in parking lots don't attribute any safety meaning at all to the lights. And the vultures are already advocating requiring either reversing alarms (so much for quietly backing into a parking spot when coming home very late at night) or backup cameras on all new cars.
I'm sure that I've mentioned this on this blog before, but I somehow ended up on a "behind the scenes" tour of an opera house that was me and a half-dozen very major donors. When we left, I saw that 4 of the 6 were driving Lexus RX's. It seems that for a subset of people who have the means to own any car that they want, the RX is what they use every-day.
Lexus is a pretty good ride.
SUV's have a nice ride height without being the crass truck.
For me, I really like the Colorado I am driving and I might update it to a newer year sometime.
Douglas2, after owning two of them, I'm pretty well sold on the Lexus RX series as an optimum combination of comfort, visibility and convenience.
To the extent that a car has an attitude, they remind me of the little Suzuki Samurai I dove for nearly ten years: it was willing to take on whatever driver wanted to try. The difference is, the Lexus has the horsepower to take on a bit more and is more comfortable in the doing.
As much highly rated as Lexus seems to be, mu buddy's daughter had lots of trouble with hers, and it was expensive to fix. Don't know the model, so it might have been specific to that.
OTOH: we owned 7 or 8 VW's, beginning in 1980, all Diesels of course. Last one was a 2014 Passat TDI (Diesel)with a 6-speed manual. I loved that car, great performance feel, albeit probably not all that quick on the clock, and 45 MPG. NOT driving it like on an economy run, either. Too bad that VW crapped in the Diesel punch bowl. Of course, due to the courts, I got $27K for a 3-year-old car with 36,000 miles on it, that I had paid $28K for.
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