So Hard…and then, So Easy
I have lately been reminded over and over again about how hard life can sometimes be. That is actually a silly thing to say or think in a world overwhelmed with so many devastating events every day. For the better part of four months now we have lived day-by-day with the Ukrainian situation, one day exposing more atrocities by the Russians in their quest for Putin’s world dominance play, than the next. The wealth disparities and social injustices of the world keep coming into focus with greater clarity both here and abroad and those of us who are white and socioeconomically privileged…and also educationally privileged, would have a very hard time understanding the hardness of the lives of the other 99% of the world. Whether its immigrants seeking asylum from violence and economic injustice or American women of color forced to make choices about their lives that leave them little choice for achieving their dreams and aspirations because some righteous politicians looking to drum up money from hate groups and the likes of the NRA are too busy about worrying about their loss of dominance or profit to care about the truncation of human hope. In a word, life is hard and it doesn’t really seem to be getting so much easier for many people.
Amidst this difficult backdrop, those of us who are on the privileged side of the spectrum suffer an entirely different sort of hard in our lives. While I would never put our challenges on a par with really difficult times that many others face every day, we all have our personal problems to solve, and on some days they seem more difficult than on others. I find that car planning is a bigger challenge than I ever remember it being. What I mean is that in retirement there are important dimensions to consider when deciding what car to drive and how to own it. Maslow would roll over in his grave if he knew I thought there was any hierarchy of needs which involved pondering the type of car to drive. But everything in retirement seems to have a timeframe element to it and our natural limitations and mortality always seem to intrude on the calculus. It needn’t be a case of the end-game per say. This is not always a Thelma and Louise problem of great finality. Sometimes its as simple as deciding how long you expect to need a big SUV to drive that can accommodate guests and kids when they are around, or how long you think you’ll want to or be able to manage a bigger vehicle. The same consideration comes into play for motorcycles with perhaps an even greater urgency based on the potential dangers of getting the timing wrong.
I actually reasoned out the car thing a few years ago and figured I would need one more go at the big SUV and could then start scaling back. Since I prefer to lease cars than own them these days (actually, I have one of each), the lease terms and my age at their termination make for interesting conversations with myself. Unfortunately, the last few cars I have leased (all from Mercedes Benz) have needed to be truncated prematurely due to failings in the vehicles. That simply should not happen with any car, but certainly not a high-end top-of-the-line model like we tend to go for. I’m finding that the expression “seeing red” is coming to my mind since Kim loves having a red car. Our first attempt at that came in 2019 while preparing to move out here. We leased an MB GLS 450 in red that got us almost all the way up the hill to Ramona on a mountain road before its suspension bounced us so hard that we feared for leaving the road. Returning a new car that almost kills you after ten miles was actually pretty easy. Getting the next one to start after it sat too long on the lot and what, got its electronics filled with dust or something, was much harder. Finally we got the new replacement car, only to find that one thing after another during two years of a four-year lease, went bad on it. It got so bad after one road trip North that I drove into the dealership and asked rhetorically what I was going to do. That’s when a 2021 red MB GLS 450 appeared with new age instrumentation and lots of car sex appeal.
Kim and I took to that red car immediately. In eleven months we have racked up almost 18,000 miles, significantly more than the 15,000 per annum we are allowed. There was nothing about that car that we didn’t like up until about six weeks ago. One day, Kim was at the gas station across town with Betty in the car. She threw her purse with the car keys into the car and went to the ladies room before heading out with her full tank of gas. The car automatically locked itself for some reason and nothing Kim could do would open the doors. The Mercedes me app is supposed to allow remote unlocking, but no such luck. Mercedes Roadside Assistance is supposed to be able to unlock the car remotely, but again, no such luck. After two hours with Kim more frantic than Betty, the Mercedes people arrived with a replacement key and the problem got fixed. We thought it was a one-off until a week later when I drove the car for an errand and couldn’t start the car for love or money. It took several hours and three different Mercedes Roadside Assistance vehicles to finally get the car to the dealership where they loaned me a pick-up truck that seats five when I needed something that seated six. This was starting to get hard.
A long conversation with the Mercedes dealership service manager had me understand that the problem is the new 48-Volt electrical system that MB now uses on all its high-end vehicles. The answer I got was far less than confidence-inspiring since they said they had to reboot the system but could not show me how to do that myself. To the question of what we would do on a cross-country trip if that happened again, I got the less than helpful response that I should contact the local dealership wherever I ran afoul of the 48-Volt battery. Now, there are 326 Mercedes dealerships in the United States, but I guarantee you that there won’t be one so close to where I next have a problem and their willingness to drop everything for an out-of-state MB owner may not be top-notch service-oriented. I’m just saying, having an unreliable car is not the best thing and certainly not when you pay almost $100k for one.
Well, after my third key fob failure episode on our way home through Las Vegas last weekend (we tinkered with it until it accidentally did start, but that was minimal consolation), I told the Mercedes people in Escondido to prepare themselves for my assault as soon as I was no longer contagious with COVID. Well, today was that day and I went straight at them. I almost wish they had put up a fight, but they didn’t. They gave me the choice of their GLS 450 inventory, as well as that at surrounding MB dealerships and agreed to swap out our lemon 2021 for a new 2022 with minimal breakage cost to me. Then to top it all off, they had me come home and sign everything electronically via Document-Sign and the salesman drove it to our home in the afternoon and handed me the keys and took our naughty red car. We are now the proud owners of a dark metallic blue GLS 450 with a light cream leather interior. It wasn’t perfect because its not red and it lacks one or two minor options i would have preferred, but it has others I hadn’t expected that I may grow to love. It’s sitting out there right now with 6 miles on the odometer, waiting for us to take it on a first drive tomorrow morning. For something that started so hard, I can’t quite reconcile how it ended so quickly and so easily, but it did. Now back to worrying about the Ukraine and the starving people of the world.