So anyway…

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Okay, first of all, it’s not “new”. It’s just new to us. In fact, it’s a 1996 Ford Fairmont station wagon in gunmetal grey with a charcoal interior, a roof rack, dual airbags, and a bunch of other features, including duel fuel (petrol and LPG). It was a pretty good deal, which is why we got a wagon (normally, we’re more sedan sorts).

As for why we got a new car, well, the old one was quite literally falling apart, and a police officer issued us with a citation on account of it being not roadworthy (we’re not worthy! we’re not worthy!). The car was 20 years old, and it really was on its last gasp, and we had been talking about replacing it. We didn’t expect to have to do it this way though. From the time you’re issued with a citation for driving an “unsafe vehicle”, you have seven days (not fourteen, not thirty, SEVEN) to have it repaired to specifications or have the registration rescinded. Getting the old car up to specifications would have cost more than we paid for the new one, so out with the old and in with the new.

I will say that the old car, which was a 1989 Ford Falcon, was a damned fine car, and she served us well for many years. We were sad to see her go, but she was very old and it was time to be recycled and maybe eventually reincarnated (pun not necessarily intended, but noticed and approved).

Zoë had to say goodbye, with a hug on the hood. I thanked the car for the many years of faithful service. Yes, we know that cars are not sentient, but a little gratitude never hurt anyone, nor does saying goodbye to anything. I’m not in mourning or anything. It’s just the changing of the guard type of thing.

One rather amusing (and frustrating) thing about this car is that a lot of of it is electric, including the door for the fuel. We took ages to figure out how to get it to work. Kept thinking we were missing something. Turns out we were right, but some of the electronics aren’t working (probably a fuse or something; the car is under a very good warranty, so we’ll just get it fixed, no worries). The central locking doesn’t work, nor does the door for the fuel. We had to take the panel off the inside of the cargo area and manually open the fuel cover door. Sheesh. Once we had it figured out, it was simple enough to get some fuel in it, but damn, we were frustrated for a while! Now that I can look back on it after the fact, I can appreciate the humour in it, but at the time… Arrgh.

So there we go. I guess we’ll see if we can get this car to last ten years or so, like the last one did…

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