Giveth and Taketh
I have a complicated life right now for several seemingly silly reasons. The first involves my newly acquired motorcycle and the other involves my newly acquired car. Let’s start with the car. I have been leasing new cars for many years now. I am simply not a fan of residual value prognostication and much prefer to pay a budgeted amount over three or four years and be done with the whole affair. That way I do not have to think about how long I should keep a car or how shop-worn it is becoming. If I get a car whose mechanics or colors I end up not liking, I only have to wait out the lease term. Mercedes, from whom I have been buying for fifteen years now, is also in the habit of assuring themselves of keeping my patronage by enticing me with a new car lease before the end of my existing lease making it so that my cars are almost always less than three years old. They always seem anxious about the changeover and so I always feel like I’m getting a good deal. When we decided to move out here last year I purposefully went to the local Mercedes dealership here to get them excited about buying me out of my old lease right after I drove that older car out here from NYC. They obliged nicely though some of my readers will recall the ordeal of getting a car that worked properly. We got through that eventually but there were several things that the new car lacked that I had become accustomed to on the cars I leased in NYC.
Dealerships make a habit of taking a point of view of what their local clientele like for options on their cars. That way they can optimize their profitability and turnover by pre-ordering and inventorying cars configured to their local market tastes. There are certain options that New Yorkers seem to want versus those that the San Diego market prefers. A few of the things I attribute to the “car culture” of California. For instance I was surprised that half of the inventory did not have the Distronic automated driver assistance, something almost all New Yorkers would want. My theory is that Californians stretch themselves to get the best car they can afford with the least of the costly options. New Yorkers want full sunroofs to catch what precious sunlight they can while Californians opt out of sunroofs either for cost or preference for staying out of the excessive sunshine out here. These are all differences I was able to navigate (pun intended), but the surprising difference was that trailer hitches, which are always on NYC cars for some reason, were noticeably absent here in California Mercedes. This seem contradictory to me as everyone out here is into dragging some sort of trailer or attachment to the desert, mountains or beach for recreational purposes. As best I can determine, everyone out here must use their pick-up trucks for trailer dragging and save their Mercedes for Sunday “go-to-church” purposes.
That leaves me with a need to equip my new Mercedes with a trailer hitch. On a new vehicle that is a $575 option so not a big deal overall. As it turns out, it is not so easy to add this option once the car has left the factory. The dealership hemmed and hawed about adding it before I bought it and suggested it was best added in the netherlands of the aftermarket. My last California Mercedes had had a hitch added by brother-in-law Jeff, my go-to guy for any mechanical or electrical addendum to my life out here. He naturally undertook to do likewise for this new Mercedes. I was most appreciative watching him grease up under the rear of the car to attach the heavyweight tow bar and hitch socket, which he managed just fine. And then came the electrical connection that would allow the brake lights and turn signals on the trailer to synch and integrate with the car. Now Jeff is something of an electrical specialist, so I felt totally confident that he had it under control. After several frustrating interactions with the Mercedes dealership, Jeff acquired a wiring harness that lacked several key elements to allow Jeff to make it work. Uncharacteristically, Jeff threw his hands up and suggested I get Mercedes to install the odd harness.
Without trepidation I delivered the car to the service department and was told to expect a call with an estimate. This should have been a warning since I thought I should only have had to say, please install the harness you sold me. They called today to tell me it would be a big job and cost $2,700 to do the job. I balked and called Jeff, who also thought that was a crazy amount. My comment was that there must be people out here that just install trailer hitches that could help. After giving me a few manufacturer names (Jeff is prone to buying parts and going full DIY, something I do not do). So I did what seemed obvious and went to the “yellow pages” of our age, Google. First name up was U-Haul Trailer Hitch Center. That sounded pretty authoritative to me so I called. They asked for the make, year and model of the car and the type of trailer connection I would need, all of which I had anticipated and knew. They promptly told me it would cost $154.60 installed. I paused. What does one do in that situation? I figured it was worth being wrong about U-Haul being competent for a differential of $2,545.40. I will learn on May 1, my appointment date (it seems they are backed up with too much hitching business), if I have solved the problem at bargain pricing.
The other problem is that I await my lemon law settlement on my prior new motorcycle, which I am advised by The Lemon Law Group of attorneys (their real name), is in process with BMW and expected imminently. That is less the concern than the newest motorcycle in my fleet. I have taken delivery and have been testing out by riding my like-new motorcycle, purchased at bargain pricing from my friend in need of disposing of his. It was shipped and received ten days ago. What has been troubling me is that there is a certain sales manager, Rudy, expecting to get a new motorcycle sale out of helping me with the whole lemon law problem. Even though I bought the lemon from Rudy and I am the one who should be vexed, I feel guilty for having traded away from Rudy. So imagine how pleased I was to get a call from Rudy today.
Rudy asked if I needed to borrow a bike for my May ride. I told him it had been cancelled but then it struck me that I needed to tell him where things stood. I explained my friend’s problem needing to sell his like-new R1250GS Adventure. Rudy’s first instinct, knowing that the GS Adventure was the number one selling motorcycle in the world (27% of all BMW’s sold), was to ask how much it was on offer for. When I told him the price, Rudy’s first reaction was to say, “just write the check, that’s a bargain!” The rest was all downhill (in a good way). The one little white lie I told was to make Rudy think I had been convinced by him to transact when the bike was sitting in my garage. The conversation lifted a great burden off my shoulders and I plan to share my good fortune on the bargain bike with some serious and well-priced commerce for Rudy and his establishment. I am mildly guilt-prone, but mostly relieved that what needed to be revealed has been revealed. The Gods of motorcycling took away my K1600GTL, but have given me an R1250GSA. He giveth and taketh in one breath. And with any luck Rudy will feel he too has receivethed.