EOW-Old Guy, New Car

Back in November, my Audi A3 finally gave up the ghost. It wouldn’t start, even though the previous evening it was fine in transporting back some boxes and crates from a charitable event we had been involved in. That morning? Nowt. Had it towed to my usual mechanics to see what the issue was, and they said the engine was getting no compression. They quoted some $5K labor just to take said engine apart to see what the issue might be, and then it’d cost more to fix. Alternative? A refurbished engine for some $9K. At which point I decided to scrap it. It was 14 years old and had suffered already from some damaging issues with said engine.

Nope, I’d rather spend less money on a new car entirely, via a lease.

I drew up a list of the major things I wanted: it had to be a hatchback, red, and manual transmission. Not Audi this time, since they no longer import manuals to the US. A quick bit of online perusing and I settled on a Honda Civic Sport and – lo! – one of the local dealerships had one coming in. I put my name down and, within a week of my having to drive everywhere in my Volvo 1800S, I’d signed the lease and drove off in my new Civic.

OMG. OK, it was good to have, but it made me feel old. Reasons?

1. The car key is essentially a remote. Keep the key in your pocket. To start the car, press the Start button with your foot on the clutch. To lock the car, just press on the door handle: beep. To unlock it, put your hand behind the door handle: beep; and then just pull on the handle to open the door. Getting used to it still…

2. No handbrake. By that I mean the type which is a lever that you grip and pull upwards to apply the brake. Instead there’s a button that you can pull up or push down with your index finger. It’ll only release the brake if you have your foot pushing down on the main brake. So, my old habit of stopping at a red light and applying the handbrake before shifting into 1st ready to drive off when it goes green won’t do.

3. However there is a brake hold button. What this does is to keep the brake applied once the car comes to a complete stop and you can lift your foot off the main brake. Kind of easy to drive off when the traffic light turns green. My problem is when I’m driving the Volvo I have to remember that this does not exist…

4. CarPlay is there. Woot!

5. Lane departure detection wobbles the steering wheel when it determines I’m swapping lanes without indicating. Fine, except even around where I live there are road repairs that look like painted lines between lanes. Wobble wobble.

6. The “getting too close to the car in front” BRAKE warning light. OK, I get it, it might help if I’m looking at my phone…

7. The dash displays temperatures only in Fahrenheit. What? I’m a boring old Englishman and I think in Celsius. Even worse, this is like a mere couple of extra lines of code to do the conversion (subtract 32, divide by 9, multiply by 5), so why isn’t it an option? Even worse, if this car had been for the Canadian market it would have that exact option: display in Celsius or in Fahrenheit. But not for the US? Head, meet desk. I’m getting very good at doing the mental arithmetic needed for the conversion as I’m driving.

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