Fiat 500 Cabriolet

I was walking Cheyenne and my phone rang. My wife's Sebring Convertible had stopped working and she was in Marathon where she teaches adults two days a week. We had little hope it was a jump start problem but I drove over and the car wouldn't start. I suspected the correct cause, a blown fuse, but I had no replacements even had I been able to check their status. AAA came promptly in the dark and towed the car to Stock Island.

"I have found a Fiat convertible at Carmax in Tampa," my wife announced over dinner the next evening.

"Ok," I replied cautiously because she hates wasting money on a new car. It was apparent to me that a road trip was coming up if she had decided, without any pushing from me, to make the move. So there we were, not too bright eyed, not too early on the road to Tampa seven hours away, in a car with some, perhaps minor, reliability issues.

I wasn't ready to cross the Everglades twice in two consecutive weekends but this had to be done whereas last week's trip was for fun. My wife put 80,000 miles on the 2004 Sebring since she bought it six years ago. The interior light didn't work, the roof was waterproof though the trim was shot, the heated seats didn't and the heavy trunk lid had to be held open with a special tool designed by yours truly: a stick.

The old Sebring is actually not a bad car though it has a few plastic parts that need replacing every 70,000 miles we discovered...shocks, a cam chain tensioner and so forth. The battery has had a habit of going flat so we suspected a failing electrical system. We drove and hoped for the best.

Cheyenne was not happy. The rear bench seat was uncomfortable and she was restless. We were anxious to arrive. It was not a completely happy crew under the canvas roof.

Carmax is fantastic. They don't haggle or bullshit, they let you test drive anything on the lot you fancy, they will buy your car independent of whether or not you buy another from them, and all paperwork, tags financing is in house. The entire process from test drive to shifting our crap to the Fiat took two and a half hours. Simple. Why anyone would not buy at Carmax I don't know. This is our fourth purchase from them, and as always no high powered selling or upgrading, no hassle, no bs. Lovely.

Cheyenne took a keen interest in the paperwork. I was worried the bench seat in the Fiat would make her crazy on the way home. They gave us twelve hundred bucks for the Sebring - yay!- which covered the tags and taxes for the $16,000 Fiat. Someone took a bath on that Lounge 500 which cost 25 grand brand new and which Carmax bought at auction in Delray Beach, sold it to us and made money with a nine grand discount...I wish I had business sense, but I am a wage slave by inclination.

Ever since my wife first saw the new 500 in Italy five or so years ago she has been unwavering in her desire to own one, perforce a convertible. She checked the Smart and the Mini and they didn't measure up. Her love of the 500 has been single minded. Weird too because she is no great lover of cars. But she's like my dog (in a good way) in that she knows what she wants. I drove the car home, she organized the stops, seen here on Tamiami Trail south of Naples on Sunday, food courtesy of Trader Joes.

We had hoped to get another year out of the Sebring but my wife has to travel for her teaching job and getting stranded is no fun so this change was inevitable. It's a pain in the ass having a $200 monthly bill but the car was an extraordinary deal, first purchased in December 2012 and since then driven 1116 miles. Carmax changed the oil and the thing is like brand new, just run in. My wife loves to drive with the roof down, though in the Fiat the cloth roof is more open than down. The roof slides open and closed with no latches or complicated lifting mechanisms and my wife loves the fact it can be opened or closed safely at speeds up to sixty miles an hour, perfect for Florida's squally weather, now sun, then rain and suddenly sun again.

The roof space inside is taller than the Mini and the interior is surprisingly spacious, even Cheyenne slept soundly on the dreaded rear seat. Even with the roof open. We opened only as far as would leave her in the shade but it didn't bother her at all. Driving home through the Keys at dusk with the dog snoring in the back gave us the promise of being able to take road trips in this little bumble bee. It's supposed to be good for 40mpg but holding eighty on the freeway drops that to about 29mpg...

The trunk is small but adequate, the 1.4 liter engine is reasonably peppy and you can manually shift the automatic six speed box, if you like, no clutch involved weirdly enough.

My sister still has her original Fiat 500, a twin cylinder air cooled 500 cc engine that offered 65mph on the flat if you were lucky. These cars were the workhorses of Italy equipped with trailers and roof racks they took families on vacation, husbands to work and they doubled as pick ups or SUVs of the time. Driving them took skill as first gear had no synchromesh so double de-clutching was a standard skill. The roof rolled back but the vinyl was kept in place by poppers when closed and rolled up in straps when open. The modern 500 reflects the quirks in an up to date package. I like it.

On Card Sound Road we kept it down to 55 long enough to slide the roof open and home we drove. I watched the mileage zoom up to 48mpg as I stuck to the mandated 45 speed limit (plus a couple). It's an odd position to be in, buying a car at a time like this. I am acutely conscious of the weird economy we are in, the effects of burning carbon, of a world generally in flux, resource battles, consumerism and Peak Oil. Despite all that daily life goes in and mobility is still expected of us no matter how gloomy the economic outlook. Besides I am battling a huge head cold I picked up from my infected colleagues at work and the feeling of unease you get from a fever permeates my days. Perhaps the economy is doing better than I think and my gloom just comes from my post-nasal drip.

I slept most of the night and woke in a coughing fit. Cheyenne and I went to Big Pine at four in the morning and I found myself pushing some shopping carts I found in some bushes. In my fevered state I wondered how the homeless among us cope with the rattling noise and awkwardness of these infernal carts. I imagined myself pushing my earthly belongings in one and I shuddered.

Everything happens for a reason the wide eyed optimists among us say with perfect sincerity. I'm buggered if I know what the reason is much of the time, especially when people die, but I know why we got the Fiat 500; my wife wanted it. Good for her. Good for me.

 

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Carmax Redux

We planned to stop by and see what they would give us for the 2002 Nissan which, with 130,000 miles on the clock was ready to move on to it's reward. I was sorry to see it go, it has been a good car until lately when reliability has become an issue, but I loved it's V-6 engine and what I thought was reasonable 28 mpg even with fuel polluted by ethanol. We ended up saying goodbye to the Maxima when Carmax offered us an astonishing $3500 for it.
The beauty of shopping at Carmax is that everything is simple and straightforward. They list the price of the car, and you decide if you want it or not. You wander the lot at will, select what you want to test drive and make up your mind at your own pace. Cheyenne could have stayed here all day but in the end we were in and out in just under three hours.

I am not fond of corporate slogans but this is no lie. They really don't hassle you at all.

This young man saw us wandering outside the fence of the lot at 11:30 and even though this was Sunday and the store wasn't due to open for thirty minutes he got us in and looking ahead of time. He was impressed we had come all the way from Key West to look around.
We had tried to buy new or used in Key West but our attempts generated no interest at all so when we arrived at Carmax and Alivet ushered us in and gave us free rein to wander around we started to remember why we bought my wife's Sebring at this same place. We came prepared to buy...And we had apparently fallen into the right hands to make this all as easy as possible.

In the end we looked at a Nissan Altima (2006 $17,000) and a Mazda 6 (2007 $15,000) but settled on the car I had seen on line in the first place, a 2007 Ford Fusion SEL, 4 cylinder. With the trade in and including tax and fees our final cash bill came to $12,385.18. My wife had budgeted $13,000 plus trade in and so it went. Unfortunately the bank in Key West didn't have enough $100 dollar bills for our needs so we ended up hauling wads of twenties into the sales cubicle. But we got the job done, counting it all three different times.

Half the money was a low interest loan from my wife's sister so we bought the car free and clear. In these weird times this had become more important for my wife, who, every time we had previously gone out to buy a car had quoted a dictum of her long dead father about only buying what you can pay for. Finally we did it- cash on the nail. Cheyenne thoroughly approved (I think).
She joined us in the test ride, sitting patiently in the passenger well behind the driver's seat but we had everything necessary for her ride home in the new-to-us car. Alivet was astonished by her easy going nature. I kept impressing on him the importance of getting a dog from the pound and walking it frequently and far. I even showed him how to use a plastic bag to be a responsible dog owner. He nodded and looked like he understood. Then it was back to counting cash. Adrian gave it a shot.

Stephany followed suit while we signed papers and gave away the Maxima and put the tag on the Fusion. In Florida tags belong to people and when you sell a vehicle you can move the license plate to your new car. Ours was important to us because it says "Monroe" on the plate which means we can park in residential spots in Key West.

We planned to spend the night at a friend's place so we had all kinds of crap to transfer from the Maxima (good bye old friend) to the Fusion (here's hoping...):

Cheyenne seemed content though the Fusion is a little smaller (and more economical happily) than the Maxima.

We drove away, air conditioning blasting (though my wife wanted to try the sunroof immediately). We discovered the rear passenger windows roll down all the way which is excellent for Cheyenne when she has to stay behind in the car and the sunroof also provides added cooling breezes for her when the car is parked in the shade.I like the look of the car certainly, but it has been well reviewed and it drives very nicely, even for an aggressive driver (by US standards) trained in Italy like me. More about that later. We have a new car with 33,000 miles on it and all the stress of the past few weeks has rolled away. Yes, I know it's hugely ironic that as oil continues to gush in the Gulf I am enjoying a new set of wheels. Chalk it up to the human condition and the nagging need for mobility.

Going Topless

After a year spent badgering the Woman I finally got my wife to buy a convertible yesterday.

It was a good day for it as we were in Miami for her to get a new cast on her arm. The wrist is healing well and what with the swelling going down the old purple cast was loose so she got a new one, in dayglo yellow. The salesman Jose, at the car shop was brilliant; he never referred to her injured arm, he just listened to what she wanted and responded, then he gave my wife the keys and let her play with the vehicle, and let her cogitate. He was her embodiment of an ideal car salesman. She bought the Sebring after a short test drive.
I know where I'm going to get my next vehicle. Carmax had us out the door in the Chrysler with a proper tag within an hour of deciding to buy. The price was fixed at $13,000 and due to her extensive research my wife knew that was a decent price for a 2004 with 36,000 miles on it so she was happy. The dealer lets you know ahead of time their fee is $149 so there are no hidden dealer prep fees and all that other rubbish plus they have an in house DMV office so the tag application was processed right there and they stuck it on the car for us. Plus we got our loan online in 5 minutes without having to haggle with a finance specialist and fill out reams of paperwork. At 7.45 percent they were 1.5 points lower than the interest for a new car at Potamkin across the street. The whole transaction was amazingly simple and above board. I had never heard of CarMax before. In my defense I hate buying and selling vehicles and they make it too easy. And they had a rather toothsome white Thunderbird on the lot at $21,000...On the way home I enjoyed a private treat when a Moto Guzzi V11 Sport in the Coppa Italia red white and green livery worked its way through the traffic jam on the Dolphin Expressway. I got a surprise when he pulled alongside and I discovered a real motorcycle not just another boring crotch rocket. Naturally as I readied the camera he changed lanes and all I got was a quick shot in the Nissan's mirror. That set me to drooling almost as badly as my wife who was grinning madly while driving under the clear blue sky in her own car. The other rearview picture of the day was of my wife enjoying a sunny 75 degree Miami evening as she followed me home.In fact she came home very happy after three hours cruising with the top down. I knew she'd missed her last convertible, a Camaro we'd had in California,and it was past time for her to get another. And I wasn't wrong; there's a change.