2020, Automotive, Business, Fantasy, Technology, The Future, Uncategorized, Weather

Driving Dreams

58 Comments

For the most part, I love my car.  I love that she’s red, I love that she is a hybrid.  I love having a hatchback again.  I really like that she tells me when it’s time to change the oil, based on her internal workings and not an arbitrary date.  And she’s small.  No Intimida or Sherpa here; with a tank capacity of 8+ gallons, my monthly gas budget is about $30.

There is one frustrating thing though.  She feels the need to let me know when tire pressure has changed, with a big ding and a reminder every time I start the car once she has noticed a pressure issue.  This usually happens twice a year… when it first gets cold and then again in the late spring when it starts to get really warm.  I usually just drive down to the dealership; they top the tires off right away and I don’t even have to get out of the car. 

But this fall, the pressure notification has gone off TWICE.  When we had a couple of seriously cold days last month and the again this past weekend when it was warmer.  I will admit that I whined a bit to the service guy and he said that it was happening a lot this fall since the temperatures have fluctuated quite a bit.

While he was adjusting the air, I daydreamed about my fantasy car.  I’d like to have those little lights on the sideview mirrors that indicate when someone is coming upon alongside you.  I would love to have built-in GPS and a north/south/east/west display.  Heated seats would be nice.  Of course, my fantasy car would actually drive itself; of course that could only be supplanted by my ultimate fantasy car — a transporter.  “Beam me over, Scotty.”

Tell me about your fantasy transportation. 

58 thoughts on “Driving Dreams”

  1. I can’t say I remember fantasizing about a car any more than I do about any other appliance. All I ask is that they be reliable and occupy as little of my consciousness as possible. When I was hauling lumber for my mini deck in my car, I did wish I still had a pickup truck, though.

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  2. Our tire pressure light has been going on more this fall than usual, too. Wildly fluctuating temps are the reason.

    We have a van and a pickup. We won’t need to replace them for a long time, as both are less than 10 years old, but I wonder what we would get again. I like the room in the van for hauling things. I suppose as we get older we will have fewer things to haul. I suppose we will need a pick up as long as we go to the stockyards for loads of composted manure.

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    1. My pattern has been to own my cars until they are 15 or more so it’s going to be a long while before I can act on any of my fantasies.

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    2. Whenever the tire pressure light goes on, I always check it out. The first thing my mechanic does is to see if all the tires are low, indicating a temperature-related signal, or if just one tire is low, suggesting a leak. Robin’s tire light went on this fall and I took the car in to check it out. One of the tires had a leak and it was in the sidewall and couldn’t be fixed. Because the tires were several years old, replacing just one tire would have been unbalanced, so I had to replace two.
      Still, it’s better than Robin getting stranded somewhere and we still would have had to replace the tires.

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  3. Daughter volunteered her Subaru to haul a live Christmas tree back from the tree farm for some friends. She said it worked great, strapped to the top of her car.

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  4. I always thought a Jetson’s era “flying space car” would be cool. And of course, it would have to be self-driving. As soon as we invent flying cars, traffic jams will become a thing of the past. However, flying cars will have to be nearly silent so the noise doesn’t overwhelm (think 100 million little miniature private planes buzzing around all day–ugh!).

    Chris in Owatonna
    (Who buys new and drives his cars until their useful lives are over (about 20 years on average)

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      1. WIth self-flying cars, all will be equipped to fly at a certain altitude (I figure 10 foot increments is about right) and they’ll all have radar that will track nearby vehicles and automatically change course or slow down to avoid collisions.

        Chris

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  5. I am very old fashioned about tire pressure. When the light comes on on my dahs, I drive to one of the two Kwik Trips within 1/2 mile of me and add the air myself.

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        2. Car has the feature, husband does not, at least not as it pertains to my car. His own car, a 2015 Toyota Avalon, gets immaculate attention.

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      2. That, and opening jars**

        **This job sometimes requires the “rubber husband,” that round, flat silicone piece that you put over the top of the jar lid for extra traction.

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      1. And maybe you didn’t see the part where the cat is perfectly disintegrated but then fails to reappear as planned. Vincent Price stares at the sky and says something like, “She’s in space . . . a stream of cat atoms . . . ” And the other guy says, “It’d be funny if life weren’t so sacred.”

        They don’t write lines like that today.

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  7. My car, with 92,000 miles, is the last I will own. A Scion. Nice car but, oh, if the warning sounds and turn signal sounds were not faint high pitched beeps, right squarely in my deaf zone. My ideal car would be this one or one like it, a little box of a car, with back up camera and lane change warning signals, but loud enough to hear. With my very bad neck is too painful for me to turn and look behind me when I back up, but then I have to.
    Bill mentioned having a pick up. Up north we had a decent car for her to drive to work and an old beater pickup for me to drive and to haul things.

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  8. Rise and Go For a Drive, Baboons,

    My perfect fantasy vehicle is a magic carpet: low maintenance, few parts, and no tires to go flat. And the advantage of flying over the rest of the traffic, is just a dream come true.

    Fantasy aside, our Honda Pilot has been the best. It is only missing a sun roof, which, if it had a sun roof, would bring it to true perfection. This car should be good for another 13-15 years. I think Lou would choose to have his ashes stored in that car once he passes on, because he has bonded with it. Last winter it brought us safely through a blizzard in Nebraska that was daunting. Sedans were spinning, and semis were Jack-knifing, landing in the ditch, while we cautiously drove on through, slow and steady, tires firmly managing the snow and ice.

    I don’t care much about cars or computers, and how they work. I just want them to work, no questions asked, carrying on through the storms of life. Any car that cannot do that has little future with me.

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  9. My car, a 2008 PT Cruiser, with 29,600 miles on it, is likely my last car as well. It gets to where I need to go, and as you can tell from the mileage, I don’t go very far.

    When I visited my friend Philip last Sunday he asked if I would drive him to pick up a Christmas tree on Saturday or Sunday. He gets a fresh, five foot tree from the same seller every year. He confided that the reason we need to go on Saturday or Sunday is that the management of Cerenity, where he lives, don’t allow fresh trees. This is a rule Philip has ignored in the past, and intends to ignore now. I see lots of reasons why this isn’t a good idea.

    Philip’s apartment is small, and with the hospital bed in his tiny living room, the place is already crowded. Besides, even if the seller of the tree could manage to tie the tree to the top of my car, I wouldn’t be able to get it down, and Philip certainly can’t either. And I have no idea who would or could set it up and decorate it for him.

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      1. No, he specifically said he wanted a 5 foot tree. But fortunately I have some say in this. I can’t handle it, so if he wants it, he’ll have to figure out some other way of getting it. I’ll be bringing him a Thanksgiving feast tomorrow. I love the man dearly, but this is just a bigger ask than I can handle.

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        1. PJ, if somebody can get the tree to his room and help him set it up I’d be willing to come over and drive the tree to wherever he is. I don’t have anything scheduled on Saturday or Sunday.

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        2. That’s very sweet and generous of you, vs. These past several months have been quite taxing, and the burden has fallen on just a few people. One of Philip’s main sources of help has just had her oldest son test positive for Covid. That means, she’s pretty much out of commission, too, at least for the time being. I’m thinking that Philip may just have to adjust to downsizing a bit this year. I’ll let you know if we need your help, and thank you.

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  10. Two off topics:
    My wife just said soda crackers, which I have not heard in 50 years.
    My 7-year-old grandson announced on video that he wants to be a hacker. When his mother asked him what he was going to do, he pretty much described a programmer, which is his father’s job.

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  12. Magic carpets and beaming have already been mentioned – but I see beaming does hive its downsides. I’m thinking in a couple million more years, we will have figured out how to move things just by thinking about the, sort of like Samantha in Bewitched, but without wiggling ones nose.

    If it’s a car, I want the heated seats, and need the back-up camera. And power brakes and steering – remember when those weren’t standard?

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  13. We usually drive our cars for at least 15 years if we started new… current Prius is a 2008. Unfortunately, that era Prius’ catalytic converters are being stolen for some precious metal – know one person who’s had to replace, to the tune of $1000…

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  15. No one has yet mentioned the heated steering wheel. Now that I have that, I would not give it up.
    I drove a Ford Escape for 16 years; it was rusting out.
    Then I got a Jeep that was T-boned and insurance bought me a newer Jeep.
    Auto start is nice, but I want it to bring itself over from the parking lot to me too.

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    1. Since we have only a one car garage, and I’m not the one using it, I want a car that automatically sheds all the snow and ice that accumulates on it during a winter storm. It would be nice if it shoveled a path to the front door too.

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