The first thing we did was just go around to dealerships when we had spare time, or a few specific trips out to look.  This started months in advance.  Once we went out on a Sunday.  Why a Sunday?  Because Indiana laws don't allow for the sale of cars on that day of the week.  Since dealerships are closed, we could walk around and look at cars without the harassment of sales persons.  I have a very love-hate relationships with automotive sales persons.

Once we had done that with a lot of internet research, we went out to get in the cars and gather brochures.  Let's think of what cars in no particular order...

• Ford Fusion
• Volvo S40 & C30
• Mini Cooper & Cooper S
• VW EOS
• Honda Accord, Civic, & Insight
• Audi A4
• Smart ForTwo
• Saab 9-3
• Nissan Altima & Altima Coupe
• Infiniti G37 and G37 Coupe
• Subaru Impreza & Legacy
• Toyota Corolla & Camry
• Acura TSX & RDX

I may have missed a car or two in that list, but these were the ones that we considered in this phase.

The earliest removals from considerations were Audi, Saab, and Toyota.  Nothing personal about the cars - they just didn't make the cut.

The rest graduated to a test drive with the addition of a few surprises along the way...  Stay tuned or not...

If you know me, you probably know that I love cars.  I learned it from watching my dad (say it like the commercial), and I've got a lot of experience in shopping, buying, maintaining, and lusting after cars of all kinds.

When Vic and I started dating, she was definitely not a car person.  Skip a long segue just to know that she's now more of a car person than most.

Last fall, she was in the market to replace her aging VW Beetle with a new or newer car.  She wanted something "more fun" since in her mind, our next car will be something more apt to repel cereal and crayons while safely seating miniature humans in special chairs.

How did we go about it you may ask?

• Looked at dealerships.
• Gathered brochures and pricing.
• Test drives.
• Decision.

There is a very healthy dose of online research at the beginning and in-between all the phases of the process.  There were some cars / dealerships that surprised us in good and bad ways.  In the end, we chose a car that wasn't even on our radar.

I'll bust this thing into separate posts, partially because it lets me have new posts for a number of days, but I could write at length about any one step of this process - and I don't want this to be thousands of words in one or two posts...

Why post something that I began months ago and forgot to post?  Mostly because my lease is up in a few months, and I'll be going through the decision process of this again.

[link to part 2]

What's really been annoying is that most don't realize how common serious automotive recalls really are.  They go down all the time for a very wide range of things.

In the myriad of cars in my immediate family has had, there have been recalls for an engine, transmissions, floor mats, emissions sensor, software, etc.  None of these ever seen any sort of media coverage.

And if you can learn anything from Fight Club, it's the formula for automotive recalls.

Take the number of vehicles in the field, (A), and multiply it by the probable rate of failure, (B), then multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement, (C). A times B times C equals X... If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

So think about that...

Now take a few other things into account.  This whole Toyota thing just happened at a time when it had knocked GM off the top of the mountain in terms of world's largest car company and just when the federal government became the majority shareholder in GM.

Now let's think about another recent little situation. Chrysler is currently experiencing problems with crash sensors on their very popular minivan that can cause the airbags not to deploy. They aren't calling it a recall though. It's a safety improvement campaign.

Speaking of lemons...  Ever heard of the 24 Hours of LeMons?  I'll get back to that...

Jalopnik is probably one of my top 5 blogs.  What can I say?  I love cars.  I grew up reading Autoweek and the other major rags, but I've embraced the blog in a big way.  Despite Jalopnik being a rather important part of my blog subscription, I've been increasingly annoyed of late by it.

Like anything that anyone has a passion towards, there's things you like and dislike...  I love Jalopnik's quick reporting all year round on consumer offerings and the prototypes at and around auto shows.  I don't like certain cars here and there, but that's all personal preference.

What really gets me pissed is the constant coverage of the 24 Hours of LeMons (link)...  Not the 24 hours of Le Mans (the world famous endurance race in France that I blogged about earlier), but LeMons as in a bunch of older model cars put through a specific race.  These races happen regularly, but it's just crap features for what I consider a top notch car blog.

As someone who detests NASCAR, I'd rather read about that bastard of a race series than LeMons.  Hell...  There's probably more coverage on LeMons in the past two years than IRL and F1 combined...  That's total crap...

The sole writer responsible for these posts usually has a good group of reoccurring post themes (I love his "Down on the Street" posts), but these LeMons posts have been more than annoying enough to make me want to write about it here and maybe send a letter on to the editor in chief.

Maybe I just don't get it.   But I do get that it's getting nice outside...  So I'll have to make some lemon shake ups soon...

Audi produced a movie that aired last week.  It's titled Truth in 24.  The film's website is flash intensive and very well done [truthin24.com].  I knew about this and was looking forward to catching it.  To my happy surprise it's been released for free on iTunes.

This film chronicles the 2008 Le Mans with some  history at the very beginning.  It's extremely well shot, and narrated by Mr. Audi - Jason Statham.

I do recommending at least taking in the first 5 minutes of the film for a tiny bit of history and some very nice shots.

If you're not much into cars, then the entire film isn't really for you.  It does have the formulaic elements of a event documentary - set up the event, create an adversary, show some action when possible, and then pull it all together in terms of the event.  It's not quite that easy, but oh well.

The abridged version: Carmax screwed up and initially "lost" the car after we had it towed up there.  Carmax then didn't admit their mistake and delayed it getting in for service for another day.  They referred the car to the local VW dealership which couldn't even look at it for another 4 business days - and thus pushing it into the next week.  When VW disagreed with the initial diagnosis of bad head gasket, they replaced the thermostat which Carmax had already replaced just a few thousand miles ago.  They bickered for at least a day about what the diagnosis was.  All this while they wouldn't approve a rental car which her extended warranty grants until yesterday, 13 days after Carmax took delivery of it.

Sure, I could go into an insane amount of detail of exchanges, but it doesn't change where we are right now.  So far it seems like they give us too much contact and their supposed customer service when it's unnecessary (like calling multiple times to tell us there's no news or that there's disagreement between mechanics with no details of the disagreement).  But then there's the complete absence of customer service when it involves things like losing a car that your company took delivery of...  Or delaying the approval a rental car earlier because as a customer you'd paid for an extended warranty that grants one in such circumstances.  Someone from the corporate level got involved and basically did nothing but convey a little inconsequential information (no apology for losing the car, the time wasted and no granting of a rental despite evidence to the contrary).

Carmax blames AAA for the car misplacement (despite someone behind the fence at Carmax taking delivery of with the a signature).  The slow service at VW is the only thing everyone agrees is beyond fault.  But the bickering between Carmax / VW or the level of relevant contact to us (the end consumer) has been without consideration of our time or frustration at the situation.

A month ago, we'd have given Carmax decent marks with a good probability of earning our repeat business.  We're going to be very glad that we have that extended warranty (the head gasket is the culprit - yeah, ouch) - but it's just such a bad taste in our mouths from all the bumbling around.  I'm unsure how this will change our overall opinion of Carmax when we're done with this car.  A lot of it will depend on how this winds up in the next few days.

If you're interested, this was taken outside of the Detroit Auto Show.  The group protesting is the UAW. I'm not going to go all editorializing on this anymore, but the issue is far from going away.  I'm still unsure on what to make of all sides of the government / auto company / union love-hate triangle.

Just ask yourself if watersports is really the answer?

thanks Jalopnik...

"Someday you're going to be able to get in your car, particularly if you're a big-city person, and drive 40 miles on a battery," he said. "And by the way, the car doesn't have to look like a golf cart. It could be a pickup truck."

I know he doesn't write his own speeches, but why pick one out of the unused bin from his fathers' presidency? I say this because Ford produced an electric version of the Ranger pickup from 1998-2002 that had a range of 65 miles... It's not the future GW, it's the past... Most current electric vehicles going into production have 150-200+ range (250 in the case of the Tesla). And all this is without governmental assistance that companies like Hummer get.

I guess all the fact checkers haven't been replaced since that whole WMD thing... But who needs facts when you have spin?

The Chronicle via Jalopnik...

First, and foremost... Al Gore needs to run for President. That's all I'll say about that for now.

Second, take a look at another electric car to his the newswire. It's a joint venture of Lotus and APX, and not only can it go 350 miles without a charge - but it has the equivalent of 644 horsepower and can do 155 mph. And it's a smallish SUV / Crossover...

Yes, I'm sick of all these prototypes like this and the GM Volt because there is nothing economically feasible like them on the market for interested consuners like myself... But this is another example that if a small car company can make something like this, then is it not much of a leap to expect something remotely comparable from any of the major automakers to be in production within the next year?

This is an image of a General Motors concept hybrid vehicle. It's code name is the XP-883 and if built it would have an electric motor that also drives the car when enough energy is stored up in the batteries thus vastly increasing economy. But wait you ask, aren't all hybrids like this? No. All GM hybrids produced and planned for production to date do not have any electric motor within the drive train. Instead these "hybrids" have larger banks of batteries that allow the car to shut the engine off and run all other functions from the batteries (everything in the electrical system) when the car is parked or at a stop. Because there is no electric motor component to this type of system, it is referred to as a "hollow hybrid". It does increase the mileage, but not much. In the case of the Saturn Vue, the mileage is increased more by using a smaller engine than the larger battery system.

So producing a hybrid that actually has an electric motor encorporated into the drive train would be a big step for GM to join Toyota, Honda, Ford and Nissan in the "non-hollow hybrid" game.

But wait, you ready for the kicker? This is a concept from 1969 published in Popular Mechanics (thanks Finkbuilt and Jalopnik). Think about that for a second... First of all, if it was published in a magazine, how long had GM been sitting on it? GM has had the foresight to put R&D into this field at least 36 years ago, but they still do not have a real hybrid on the market. Even throughout the oil embargo days when the Japanese automakers started kicking Detroit's butt with fuel efficient cars, GM didn't even think of actually trying to produce something that could blow everything away.

Now that it predicted that Toyota will overtake Ford and GM within 12-18 months in volume of production, what's GM's reaction? To show off concepts of what they have had the ability to make for years and will never see the production line for years if ever. It's not just GM, but every company other than Toyota and Honda are also guilty (Ford and Nissan license Toyota technology for their hybrids).

I think we're past the time for concepts in this realm. Put up or shut up. For the sake of the American economy and the global environment, just do it.

One, this only makes the cars more resistant to becoming unstable. This in no way accounts for bad drivers which seem to be everywhere (especially in Florida and New Jersey).

And second, why not turn that power of vehicle standards to MPG ratings? They've done it before, why not now? Not only could this spur innovation (or just require companies to give us the cars they already sell in the rest of the world), but it could lower fuel costs from an increasing supply thanks to more efficient vehicles.

I guess everyone is happy with gas $0.50 cheaper than a few months ago...

Regardless, I challenge anyone to see it and concretely refute the case it builds that there was a specific effort by automakers and the government (local and federal) to repeal California laws requiring automakers selling automobiles within the state to sell a specific percentage of completely emission free vehicles. Most large companies are already suspect in my eyes because of the nature of a corporation, but what respect I did have for large automakers is now gone. I may appreciate their products as an automotive enthusiast, but their practices over the past hundred years has severely limited progression in many ways.

I'm personally proud to drive a very fuel efficient car, but would really love to have an electric car. Comparatively very cheap fuel... Maintenance is almost non-existent with hundreds of fewer moving parts than a normal car... I'm looking forward to the future where I can get an electric car with the current selection. I'm especially keen on seeing the 2nd and 3rd generation Tesla vehicles. I will buy one if the company survives and I'm in the position to do so.

On the downside, I'll bet this thing gets 14 miles per gallon and has about as much room as a Southwest Airlines coach seat. I wouldn't kick one out of my garage though... Even in this wonderful shade of leisure-suit blue.