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November 04, 2003
beetle talk
so i took spacepod in to the hoity-toity "auto spa" in cary-- a special treat that we get to have less and less often, not because it's especially expensive (for $10 they clean him both inside and out pretty thoroughly), but because it just takes so dang long these days.
anyway, the clientele generally runs to soccer moms with huge SUV's, retirees with huge SUV's, and the occasional cellphone-wielding young man with a BMW sedan. i don't think i've ever seen another bug there-- but yesterday a silver bug pulled up right behind me-- and the owner noticed that i have a diesel and said he wanted to ask me some questions.
his was also a tdi, as it turned out, and he wasn't sure that it sounded right. he said he was bothered by the noise. now, i've always loved the way spacepod sounds-- a little more butch than your average car, but not downright agressive. i realize that this might just be a tdi fanatic thing. but from what he said, his auto tranny was not downshifting properly when going up hills and the engine was lugging.
we wound up having quite a lengthy talk. he had an interesting perspective on the car-- he said he wanted to keep it for a very long time, and was very pleased to see another silver bug with over 100k miles and the paint still looking really good. but he's clearly not into car modifications or showing the car, or having the car as a sort of museum piece. i think his desire to keep the car in good shape was more to save money and the environment.
at the end, he said he felt a lot better about things; he said he'd try driving it a little more agressively to see if that gets better performance out of the auto tranny.
RRRRRR! yeah!!
Posted by lisa at November 04, 2003 07:00 PM | TrackBack
ok, so a) your comment won't post right away because i have to approve it first and b) you might get a server error but your comment probably posted anyway and c) previewing doesn't work so i've removed the preview button.