I was recently involved in a rear-end accident (I was hit ), much to my annoyance.  My newer car, which is a 13 year old, 2 ton _car_, not these roller skates you people call "economy cars" is part of the family.  I treat my car like a child, its my baby, so having a very large, glaring imperfection such has 2-3 feet of bumper scuff on my car was unacceptable -- consider it like your child bringing home a D and 2 Fs, same feeling.

I'm not saying the car is perfect, not in the least bit (the interior however, we can argue that) -- I had been nudged a few times here and there, someone tried to steal it once, but nothing major (these things disappear at 10 feet) ...except my hood.  I had a "bald spot" on the hood pretty much since I got it and it, like a bald spot, grew as the years went on.  It was that one thing that everyone would say "hey nice ca ...ooo, whats this?"  Well, I went and got the estimate for the rear bumper, passed it on to the insurance company, got the OK for it and when I took it back, asked how much for the hood to get painted to.  Hoods are easy -- easy to take off, hang, paint, bake, put back on so it wasn't a whole lot and we agreed on a fair price and I got my car back last night.  Before we more forward, let's talk about the rental...

For a rental car, they first offered me a Sentra.  Uh, no, for those of you in the wild, I'm 6'8, that will not work.  The biggest thing they had was an Ultima - a 2008.  Ok, fine.  The guy brings it around.  The car doesn't have keys, at all (ok, there's one hidden), its all operated by this key fob, which is cool, I'm kinda geeked about that.  You walk up to the door, push a button and "beep" it lets you in, sit down and press the break, push a button, the car starts and your on your way. The guy tells me "you can just leave the fob inside the car" to which I replied "You have no idea where I live do you?" -- not leaving the fob in the car.  I drive this thing and it ain't all bad - overall I liked it (but would never buy one).  But I digress, I need to go right into the complaint deparment because there's a couple things that drove me insane about this car.

1. CVT transmission.  Glad I expereienced it in a "I didn't buy this" way because I HATED it with a passion.  Yes, when you accelerate, you always are at this magical 3200rpm range and continue to accelerate, that's great fine and dandy _BUT_ ...and thats a full, wholesome but... I want to know that the car is IN GEAR when I hit the gas.  I want to feel a slight step, a kick.  Let's be honest, it IS an Ultima and doesn't have the same engine mine has but good god, make me feel like it's trying when I want to get on the highway or pass someone.  One thing they DO have was a mpg gauge (nothing new, my 96 has one - and I think mine's cooler and yes I'm biased) and you'd notice if you were to accelerate with traffic, 5mph over 15-20 seconds, you'd see the mpg thing go ALL OVER the freakin place.  It gave me the feeling of a failing transmission that's hunting for a gear or a bad position senor that didn't have a clue where it was.  Yes, the transmisson was suffering from dementia.

2. Power steering.  I understand this is a mainstream car, but I expect the wheel to be able to hold the weight of my thumb.  The thing was psycho sensitive leading me to believe it does NOT have speed sensitive steering.  If you ever drove an older truck at highway speeds, it feels EXACTLY like that at ALL speeds.  I can't blame that on break-in or "new car" because yes, the brakes were touchy too but I expect that, but not this overly sensitive, soupy feel of the steering wheel.  I want the damn thing to be SURE I'm moving it and not a fly fart.  I'm sure there was quite a few people that were saw me "jerk" the wheel and thought a mental patient was behind the wheel ...well maybe there was but regardless, its way too disconnected-feeling.  Gave me 0 confidence in the car.

In all fairness, I'm super critical of cars.  Most people won't even notice that kinda stuff, but I do, I'm old school in how a car should be (v6 or bigger, rear/all wheel drive).  So back to my car.  I go and turn in the rental, hit the service counter and talk to the nice lady to get my car back, pay the big chunk of cash and she says they can pull the car around -- Nope, I'd rather go find her.  So off I go and my car's sitting out at the end of row 7 (theres 8-9) and I can see it from the other side of the lot.  Like a kid at christmas.

The blad spot is GONE, the bumper is imperfection-free and ah is it nice.  I noticed immediately my rims are bright and bling-blingy -- they detailed the bejesus out of it, inside and out.  The scuffs around the car are GONE (buffed out, dude's got skillz) and I was reminded why I love this car ...that and its paid off!

If you need some body work done, I would recommend Tom Hicks over at Graham Ford.