Backtracking Part 5 - The Return

  Title was signed, keys in hand, we were ready to roll. One problem, the windshield was looking pretty rough in terms of not being clean. Looking through a haze at dusk while not having good front headlights. In one word, scary.

  I asked if he had anything that I could give the wind shield a good wipe with. Thankfully the gentleman was nice enough to furnish a whole roll of paper towels and a bottle of Windex. Actual Windex, the normal blue kind, not some off brand. Sweet! So after half a roll of paper towels (sorry environment) and half a bottle of Windex, I could see, mostly. This of course is an exaggeration in terms of quantity. Just trying to make the point that inside the wind shield was nasty. Like hazy, smoke nasty*.

  Wind shield was clean, now we were ready, ready. I sat down in the gangster leaned driver seat, through up on hand on the wheel, posed for just a minute, soaking up the newness. The feel of a different, new to me, vehicle in hand. After a moment I started her up. She had enough gas to get us home. A short roll out of the gentleman's driveway, over the stone "road", a left on the less rocky "road." We were home bound. Sally (our Saturn, driven by my buddy) following behind. The excitement was high.

  In a few short miles I realized that my butt was cold. Not a problem, heated seats do your thing. A few moments later and the warmth was noticeable. It was wonderful. I didn't want to think about what it would cost to fix the heating coils in these if they did even go ca-put, aka bad. At this point I was just happy to be warm.

  I turned the automatic climate control on, the fans kicked on, the heat started flowing out of the vents. Along with it, a bad smell. What was that? Remember the oil leak issue from the last post? I thought maybe that was what I was smelling. It wasn't that though, something more smoky. It was sweet at the same time. It smelled like burnt strawberries. Great...this is when I finally realized, my nose finally caught on to the fact that, this car has been smoked in. Damn.

  A bummer but, I was distracted quickly by the 18 button On Board Computer (OBC) the car had. You can check full consumption, outside temps, any codes the car has thrown, such as the Brake Light Fault it was showing now. Cracked taillight, common issue. There was a trip meter, a clock and date, this section was black. It think it went bad long ago. Max speed, timers, and average speed. Pretty cool stuff. I liked being able to see the overall fuel economy. It was reading 22.1 MPG at this point. Not too bad for a 2.8 inline six cylinder.

  The motor felt great. The extra torque, in comparison to what I was used to driving, was excellent. The transmission was shifting nicely. I took off quickly a few times just to feel her out. There were even a few twisty roads. I of course had to open it up in the corners a little bit. Felt a bit wobbly but, it was planted. Not bouncy at all. A stock unmodified suspension. Exactly what I was looking for. This could be improved upon soon enough. All in good time.

  My hands were holding the wheel as steadily as I could. That flop, flop, and drag to the right was pretty bad. That worn out Kumho AST on the passenger side was letting me know it was not happy with the situation at hand. The rest of the car sounded decent. No other wobbles so far. The biggest concern for me next was, food.

*I still hadn't caught on to the fact the car was smoked in, at this point.