The delivery day kept getting pushed back, and pushed back, and finally it was set in the middle of my trip to the USA that summer (2013). I got back at the end of August, and finally went to pick up my new car. Nice, shiny, blah, blah, and I got in to drive it home.
It must have been 40° or more in there (104° F), so I immediately looked for the AC to turn it on. Well, I got it to blow, but it felt more like exhaust from a pizza oven. When I got home, I called them and asked how I was supposed to get the thing to work. They told me, but I had done all that. They said to drive back there, and they would show me (unspoken: you stupid American idiot).
So, the stupid American idiot drove back to the dealership and they found, to their immense embarrassment, that the A/C indeed did not work. Technically, everything seemed to be working, but it was determined that it had sat around so long while I was in the USA that some computer program that was supposed to kick in had passed its time limit, and thus would not start the AC. With profuse apologies, they said they needed to keep it a day or two to re-program it (re-program it!! It's a goddam car, not the Space Shuttle!). They drove me home, and two days later, my wife drove me back there. Wonder, oh wonder, the AC worked. The salesman said it was the first time ever that he had sold a car where the A/C didn't work from day one. Lucky me.
I usually drive my cars until one of us dies (so far, it has always been the car). This time, I'm not sure who wins "Beat The Reaper." I've had this car for just about nine years, but it only has about 35,000 KM on it. I usually only drive from the house to the train station or to the airport, although in recent years, my wife has asked to take my car when she drove up north to visit her mom (2½ hours each way), or down south to visit our daughter (about 2 hours each way). Her car was 13 years old, and starting to seriously misbehave. That's when I said, time for a new one for her. We ordered it in September, were promised delivery in December. That got pushed back to February. THAT got pushed back to late April, when we actually DID pick it up. At the dealership, the salesman started showing her how it worked, and this time, I think learning how pilot the Space Shuttle would have been easier. Are all these gimmicks really necessary? Good thing we didn't order any of the fancy extras. he started fooling around with her cell phone, programming this and that into it, all connected (so he said) to the car.
Well, we have no clue what 90% of that stuff is, or how it works, but the A/C is running! You gotta take progress where you find it. In nine years, at least they have figured out how to make that work.
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