Hark! I return.

Well, I can officially say I hate cold mornings. I just don't like getting up that early, sorry Mum. We've been going all over lately- hence, little time to blog. I just rolled over 45k miles O_o. Time for an oil change! The strange human is poised to attempt to change her own oil. I am sure it will be amusing. She plans to video the event, to be posted on YouTube.
The subject of today's post has to do with other cars. I see lots of other New Beetles around. This
is one VW-lovin' town, I'll tell you that much. I'd even go so far as to say that 10-15% of the cars around here are VW's, and usually we see 3-5 other NB if we go to town. (And Mum waves. Like a dork. So embarassing.)

The subject of today's post has to do with other cars. I see lots of other New Beetles around. This is one VW-lovin' town, I'll tell you that much. I'd even go so far as to say that 10-15% of the cars around here are VW's, and usually we see 3-5 other NB if we go to town. (And Mum waves. Like a dork. So embarassing.)

Mum doesn't like the new robot-looking cars. She finds them hideous. And terrifying. They look terribly unsafe.

Hello, I'm an ugly 'Smart Car'. People are willing to wait on long lists to aquire me and then brag about their gas bills. If we get in a wreck, I hope you don't value your kneecaps or anything below them! :D















Hey, I'm just another ugly Honda in a long long line of ugly Hondas. But buy me. Cool robot voices command you to.







Well, at least I try to look like some sort of carlike box thing. Typical VW. But I am like an ugly mongolid cousin who wants to kiss the New Beetle, and be friends. Please, please NB! We're practically brothers! Shhh, we can quietly phase you out...

Demons, all of them.

Would you like a friendly reminder of why New Beetles rock?

Hit a tree going 75mph

Hmm.

A very kind person on NewBeetle.org looked up my Carfax and my owner-girl finds it very interesting indeed...

She's from NY... and apparently so am I. :o


Date: Mileage: Source: Comments:
Not Reported NICB Vehicle manufactured
and shipped to original dealer

09/22/1998 15 New Jersey
Motor Vehicle Dept.
Madison, NJ Title issued or updated
First owner reported
Registered as
personal vehicle

03/23/1999 5,554 Service Facility Vehicle serviced

10/29/1999 12,600 Service Facility Vehicle serviced

07/19/2000 New York
New York City Area
Inspection Station Passed safety inspection
Passed emissions inspection
View what was inspected


08/04/2000 12,898 New York
Motor Vehicle Dept.
Barrington, IL Title issued or updated

08/21/2001 28,062 New York
New York City Area
Inspection Station Passed safety inspection
Passed emissions inspection
View what was inspected


06/06/2002 32,648 Auto Auction Sold at auction
in Eastern Region
Listed as
a fleet vehicle
Dealers routinely buy and sell millions of used vehicles at auction each year.

06/12/2002 32,661 Bob King Autohaus
Wilmington, NC
910-793-2464
www.bobking.com Vehicle serviced
Maintenance inspection completed

07/19/2002 32,662 Bob King Autohaus
Wilmington, NC
910-793-2464
www.bobking.com Vehicle serviced

08/15/2002 Bob King Autohaus
Wilmington, NC
910-793-2464
www.bobking.com Vehicle sold

08/19/2002 Dealer Inventory
Wilmington, NC Vehicle offered for sale

08/20/2002 32,663 Bob King Autohaus
Wilmington, NC
910-793-2464
www.bobking.com Vehicle serviced





Owner 2
Purchased: 2002
Where: North Carolina
Est. miles/year: 730/yr
Est. length owned: 9/3/02 - 7/31/06
(3 yrs. 10 mo.)




Low mileage! This owner drove an estimated 730 miles per year, lower than industry average of 15,000 miles. These vehicles can be a better value.
Date: Mileage: Source: Comments:
09/03/2002 32,735 North Carolina
Motor Vehicle Dept.
Wilmington, NC
Title #774432022467145 Registration issued or renewed
New owner reported

05/13/2003 33,067 Bob King Autohaus
Wilmington, NC
910-793-2464
www.bobking.com Vehicle serviced

07/01/2003 33,106 Bob King Autohaus
Wilmington, NC
910-793-2464
www.bobking.com Vehicle serviced
Safety inspection performed

11/30/2004 34,894 Bob King Autohaus
Wilmington, NC
910-793-2464
www.bobking.com Vehicle serviced

09/08/2005 Montesi Volkswagen
North Haven, CT
203-281-0481
www.montesivw.com Vehicle serviced
Radiator replaced





Owner 3
Purchased: 2006
Where: North Carolina
Est. miles/year: ---
Est. length owned: 7/31/06 - 8/14/07
(1 year)



Date: Mileage: Source: Comments:
07/31/2006 40,553 North Carolina
Motor Vehicle Dept.
Wilmington, NC
Title #771507062162150 Odometer reading reported for title
or registration

08/04/2006 North Carolina
Motor Vehicle Dept.
Wilmington, NC
Title #771507062162150 Title issued or updated
Registration issued or renewed
New owner reported
Passed safety inspection

09/22/2006 North Carolina
Inspection Station
Wilmington, NC Passed emissions inspection

03/08/2007 North Carolina
Motor Vehicle Dept.
Wilmington, NC
Title #771507062162150 Registration issued or renewed
Passed safety inspection





Owner 4
Purchased: 2007
Where: North Carolina
Est. miles/year: ---
Est. length owned: 8/14/07 - present
(1 month)



Date: Mileage: Source: Comments:
08/14/2007 40,798 North Carolina
Motor Vehicle Dept.
Sneads Ferry, NC
Title #776342072276016 Odometer reading reported for title
or registration

08/15/2007 North Carolina
Motor Vehicle Dept.
Sneads Ferry, NC
Title #776342072276016 Registration issued or renewed
New owner reported
Passed safety inspection

09/19/2007 43,068 North Carolina
Inspection Station
Jacksonville, NC Passed

Driving test

Here's a driving quiz for all of you. Needs only to be taken by people who drive obnoxiously large SUV's.

You know the ones I'm talking about. As far as I'm concerned, unless you're a contractor or hauling horses, you don't really need any car bigger than a minivan or a Jeep Grand Cherokee. And at least Jeeps are fairly narrow, so you can see past them, even though they're tall. Which brings me to the exam question...

The setting is a straight, narrow, 2 lane country road, with a broken single yellow stripe (Approved passing zone) . The minimum speed limit for this road is 55 mph, and you are behind a PT Cruiser which is doing 35mph. The proper response to this situation is:

a) Check carefully down the clear mile of road to be sure no cars are coming in oncoming traffic, put on your left directional, and then accelerate to the speed pass quickly, then put on your right directional to return to your proper lane.

b) assume that the PT Cruiser has a very good reason for going 35mph, and creep along talking on your cell phone, despite the fact that your SUV is very WIDE and the VW behind you cannot see past you, while 10-15 cars slow down to 35mph behind you. Hurrah! We are all in the PT Crusier parade at 8:45 at night!

People are dumb.

Also:

North Carolina (or at least, the county I'm in) got new school buses this year, and they are hideously horrible. They look like the Little Tikes Schoolbus-which-looked-like-a-yellow-minivan bus.

Oh and there's a smexy yellow NB parking all the time near me at school. Mmmm mmmm baby, do you want some sugar?

Unholy Neglect!

My Myspace Photo. (No, I don't really have a Myspace...yet)

So as retaliation for her embarassing lack of updates, I have played a little expensive trick on her! Hah!

So I started having problems a couple days after my last update, wouldn't start. She followed her instinct on a parasitic drain on the battery from an aftermarket subwoofer- let's see, NB are moderately notorious for eating batteries, so stick a huge subwoofer connected straight to it. Very intelligent. Since she isn't gangster, the woman didn't need the damn subwoofer anyway, so she got out GLOVES and TOOLS in the middle of the school parking lot in the middle of the day and like 10 guys tried to help her and she said NO to all of them and they skulked away. Good job there too!

Well that evening I started right up, especially since I had an appointment at the evil stealership of doom the next day, and who really likes going to there anyway, they just do all sorts of evil prodding and poking about and then the new models laugh at you. I am an old man, and I don't need those snotty little Rabbits hopping in my face anyway. Hey, you're just Golfs with a new name! I know your secrets.

Well, long explanation later, blah blah, 710.00 were required to liberate me with several new sensors, a re-down-tune (aw shucks) and a new taillight, to be legal for NC inspection once more. Since the other light was just 'faded' (my short blue arse it was) the woman figures maybe she'll make a lamp out of it or something. I don't put it past her, she's pretty damn strange.

Oh and she's put 2000 miles on me. Okay Mum, that's my limit for the year, now park me and leave me be. ;)

To see some pics of my various dolphiny-things (via Livejournal Scrapbook) go here.

Until our next meeting,

Blu

Finally... the only car in the driveway.

Well, a lot has happened since my last post, dear (imaginary?) readers.

The scared-looking Escort was sold- and shuttled off to Wilmington. An embarassing number of widgets and -and I am not proud of this- stickers arrived in the mail to mar my flawless exterior. Look, lady. I'm almost ten years old here, and yet I have sustained surprisingly little external damage. My blue visage has faded, somewhat, but the dents and dings are minimal! Why must you insist on "personalizing" me? And with goofy marine mammals, at that?! Dolphins!! Woman- I am not Flipper!

She will shortly post photos of me in this somewhat aquatic state. My bloomenvassen has a Sunflower cluster in it. I have bath mats for mats in the front; my leather exterior has been cleaned, conditioned, and covered with a blanket in the back and seat covers in the front.

She's pleased with me, overall.

I can tell.

Well now that's over with...

Finally I can get down to dishing about things I care about, since you've been introduced now.

She filled me up for the first time yesterday, and it cost 33.01. Then she bought some weird fuel additive crap (boy, what a sucker, everyone knows those things are just there to con people out of money) for 1.75 to 'improve the fuel quality". At least that's what the label said. I think she just did it because she's guilty about not using Premium. She didn't buy the jet fuel though. At least she doesn't have delusions that I'm a Turbo.

Oh, and her idea of decorating me? Blue. Wooly. Bath. Mats.

You read that correctly. The kind with the rubber on the bottom? She just laid them down in the front on top of my perfectly lovely factory carpeting. To make matters worse? Two plush dolphins. Right there on the back by the trunk shelf. (Of course, she's also filled the trunk with crap. I have junk in the trunck, all right.)

Oh and then she bought one of those compasses that's round and floats on a peg. She stuck it to my dash. Hah, I got her back though, the heat that built up inside me while she was at work made it pop open and leak water. That's what you get for making me so geeky.

Blu to You.

On 14th of August, 2007, I was sold.

I am a 1998 Volkswagen New Beetle. I have had one owner before; well a couple actually, and they were older folks. They didn't drive me very much. In the nine years I lived with them I only racked up 41,000 miles. Those of you more swift in the audience will likely make the connection that I am Techno Blue in color. I have a Pioneer sound system with subwoofer, and leather seats with heat. I have an alarm system.

I was waiting in the garage patiently that night. The neighborhood was quiet. Then two people walked in- a couple in their 50's. 'Excellent,' I thought. 'More old people. The next ten years of my life will be as uneventful as the last.'

They test drove me and petted me and said how pretty I was for my age. (Excuse me?) And it was all fine until they mentioned how happy I would make her, how she has always wanted one just like me, how now they had to sell her other car.

'Who's her?' I wondered.

Money exchanged hands. Plans were made for the drop-off the following morning.

The trip wasn't very long and soon I was parked outside- can you imagine the horror? No garage. Well, there was a garage on the property, but it was occupied. Inside was a fairly friendly '72 bus named Hans (we exchanged pleasantries from afar, though his vocabulary seems rudimentary at best. He seems very much like an old stoner sort...) and some sort of growling, cherry-red domestic convertible thing.

Then up pulled a nervous-looking black Escort, and who was driving it but a girl. Some short, vaguely-Irish looking and decidedly not old...girl.

I am now at the mercy of a 21 year old girl. A 21 year old girl with a highly unnatural obsession with dolphins.

Yes, dolphins. How cliche is that? Now I have to have my beautiful exterior strangely adorned with all manner of marine mammals. I dread the arrival of the post at every noon.

She is an acceptable driver. I will give her that much.

But now she has started a blog for me. That, along with her tendancy to take the curves a little fast, makes me question her sanity.

That, and her choice in music. The Big Bopper? Good gracious woman, I'm not a '58.