After 7 years of solid service, I finally dumped the ’99 Mitsubishi Mirage last month and decided to treat myself to a nicer and safer car.  For me, I was only looking for a 4-door sedan since I don’t like trucks, SUVs or minivans.  While I was looking at used Audis and Saabs and BMWs, a dark blue Lexus ES300 grabbed my attention and that was the one I wound up getting.  In addition to the 5-year warranty, CarMax also includes a “we fix anything the first 30 days you have it”.  I wound up noticing the middle panel where the radio and AC/heater display was located didn’t light up when the lights were turned on.  A minor thing but, since I wanted a fully functional car, I decided to report the issue.   I knew that I would fixate on a small flaw like that so there was no sense not getting it fixed.

Since it was an electronic issue, CarMax didn’t have the right equipment to troubleshoot what exactly was going on so it was farmed out to the nearest Lexus dealer.  Making a long story short, Lexus initially didn’t order the right part, the right part that finally came wound up being defective, and then they eventually just ordered a new CPU for the car to cover everything.  It took them 2 ½ weeks to finish the job.  I didn’t even mind that it took that long since I’d rather they fix the problem before it’s not covered plus I would get a loaner car to drive for the time being.

The problem resided in what my loaner car was.  Since CarMax is a certified Chrysler repair shop, they wound up sticking me with a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan.  My eyes glazed over as they handed me a set of keys and told me what I’d be driving.  At the time, I figured “Well, it’s only going to be a few days for them to fix the car so I guess as long as no one recognizes me, it’ll be OK.”

Let’s get one thing straight.  I have nothing against minivans.  I understand why people get them and if you have more than 2 kids, you’re almost forced to have one unless you go the SUV route.  To me, larger vehicles is God’s way of saying that you should look into snipping your balls or tying your tubes after Kid #2 before you get stuck in a butt-ass ugly minivan or gas-chomping SUV.  Plus, you just can’t look cool in a minivan.  It’s simply not possible.  Even when I put in a live Pantera CD and cranked up “Cemetery Gates”, I still felt emasculated.

Keep in mind I had just gone from a reliable-but-cheap 2 door coupe to a luxury 4-door sedan that glided over the road.  Then 3 weeks later I go from that sweet ride to a minivan that, while only a year old, had been rode hard and put away wet.  The damn thing smelled like an Asian family, got bad gas mileage, and the driving and handling of that monstrosity was atrocious.  The gas pedal constantly wanted to offer more-than-normal resistance, making a 40-minute commute very tiring on the legs and feet.  On top of all that, now that I’m addicted to XM radio, listening to local radio was akin to torture, thus only allowing me the option of listening to CDs.

As we got into the second week of Minivan Loaner From Hades, I started to get quite impatient.  Here I finally had purchased a nice car for once in my life and I was stuck in a piece of poo minivan that handled like a 10-year-old vehicle.  In addition, I might as well have had an SUV or extended-cab pickup truck since parking this land monster was not exactly easy.  Our garage easily holds 2 4-door sedans with plenty of room left over but when you try to jam in a minivan like this, the only way for me to get out of it was to use the sliding door behind the driver's seat.

The day the CarMax technician called me to tell me my car was fixed, I’m am sure there are tire tracks where I pulled into the lot to dump that minivan as fast as humanly possible.  If there was ever an inkling of a thought that I didn’t want to drive a four door sedan, those 2 ½ weeks cured me of any urge.  I can safely look to my right and left again if I'm stuck at a stoplight and not have to mouth the words "It's a loaner. Seriously, I HATE minivans" to the people who were staring.