I cannot drive a new car

I cannot drive a new car. You see, in the past twenty years or so since my Alfas were new the quality and design of modern cars has become so poor that they just do not hold up. Not sure what happened but modern cars are just junk. Sure they have good fit and finish. Sure the air blows really cold. Sure they start right up every morning hot or cold. Sure they do not overheat in traffic. Sure you can go 10,000 miles without changing the oil, or even checking it. But ask yourself… Can you drive it?!?!

A few weeks ago I took my wife’s virtually new 2009 VW Rabbit in for it’s first service. It has a wonderful 2.5L inline 5. The engine has proven reliable since it was introduced a few years ago and has received a decent horsepower upgrade as a result. When this engine came out it made only 155hp. Seems to me like Alfa was doing that with the GTV6 back in the day. Now the engine makes 170hp along with plenty of grunt! I digress. The engine is not the subject of this story. So anyways, I took the car in for an oil change and whatever else they do. It still wigs me out that we drove the thing 10,000 miles before it needed service, but whatever. The Germans know what they are doing.

So while I am there I sit in some cars and poke around a bit. Have you seen the new Passat CC? Wow! I could see myself in one of those! And while I was there I had to try out the latest technical gizmo from Germany. You see I had yet to put the smack down on a DSG gearbox. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-Shift_Gearbox) One of the benefits of coming from a family that almost exclusively buys VWs is that the dealer gets to know you. So I just called over one of the salesmen and asked to drive something with the DSG. A minute or so later they hand me the keys to a brand new GTI and tell me where it is parked. They did not even come with me or bother to show me the car! That is trust! So I got in, made plenty of seat adjustments, and took off! Wow, what a gearbox! It just shifts! Up, down, whatever! It just does it! And the rev matching is so much better than that stupid tiptronic Porsche sold them for the rest of the fleet. So I took it around the usual test drive route. All the dealers in this area use the same loop to show off cars. Perhaps I take the curves faster than most test drivers, but I have been driving this loop for years now. Eventually I get back to the dealer and the Rabbit is still not ready. No bother, I brought a book!

If you love cars and have not read any of the “Last Open Road” series, you are missing out! Ok, enough of all this mess. This is not an advertisement for VW or B.S. Levy books. (If you get a chance you should try them both!) Finally the car was ready. They even washed it, albeit not like I would have done my Alfas.

For the trip home, I drove the car like I drive my own cars- HARD. I popped it over into the crummy autostick (not sure if it is still tiptronic, it certainly seems better than it used to be). I also took the opportunity to disengage the ESP. I do not want the car reading my mind anyways! Boy did I ever drive it hard. Plenty of redline shifts, hard braking, WOT and the like. This car is fun! It is a good twenty to thirty miles back into Zachary from the far side of Baton Rouge, so I really got the chance to get into this car. The car may have even gotten into me a little bit. Big smiles!!

Eventually I got back to the house. And that is when I found out that modern cars are just not built the same as my old Alfas. Both rear brakes were smoking! And I mean hot! When I pulled into the driveway I saw clouds roll by before I got out of the car. Needless to say, I was not pleased. I called the dealer and got some BS excuse about fancy wheel cleaner causing smoking and such. I drove the car some more and the brakes cooled off. At first they were squealing as I went down the road, but it eventually went away. To be honest, I have not driven the car since. The wife was not pleased, but she has had no problems so I guess everything is ok. The rear pads will probably need replacing before the fronts.

Did I mention that I once gave a brand new Toyota rental car a miss over a week of driving? That was a fun time too, but not worth telling here. I am not trying to bash new cars here. I have several modern cars on my shopping list for when I win the lottery. The point is that next time you get into your perfect little Honda or BMW or Hyundai to go to work or the grocery store, ask yourself how hard you would push this car. Would you push it like you push your Alfa? Would you throw it into the corners? Would you hold it in a lower gear just to listen to the engine scream? And most of all, would the car take it? Do you have confidence you could do that everyday and not blow it up? Those are all questions I do not have answers to. But I do know that for my Alfas, the answer to all of those questions is YES! With gusto! So grab yourself a beer and raise a toast to your Alfa and it’s antiquated engineering, long may it run!

(Note- no rabbits were harmed in the making of this newsletter.)

Epilogue/technical note-

After some research online I think I eventually found the problem. Does anyone here know the subtle braking difference between a Verde/Platinum Milano and the rest of the Milanos? Sure you do… ABS. Not only does the Verde have ABS, but the engineers actually took it into consideration when designing the brake system. Since the ABS system would take care of any lock ups, the engineers saw fit to put a bunch of brake bias to the rear. It makes perfect sense! Well, the German engineers agreed! So the Rabbit has a healthy dose of rear brake bias. It also has that stupid ESP. The Germans rigged it up so that even when the ESP is off, it is still on a little. And one of the ways the ESP works is to use the rear brakes to control the car in cornering. So the end result of aggressive driving is some hot hot hot rear brakes. Wow!