11 years or 130K miles
So, waaaaay the heck back in 2011 I bought a 2009 Subaru Outback with 62K miles on it, replacing a Kia Optima that had enough engine problems to make it an upside-down trade, but I got a solid car in the process. And I’d been wanting another Subaru for years, having had one as my first freedom-wheels back in high school, so I thought it was great all-around.
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It took me longer than I wanted it to, but I eventually paid it off. Along the way, the poor thing got side-swiped by some idiot turning left into a business from the lane to my right on a one-way street. Just about the time I was planning to use the money he gave me to fix the bodywork, a bolt backed it’s way out of the torque converter in the transmission and started chewing it’s way through the engine block. Luckily I had cash for repairs…
A couple years ago I started thinking maybe it was time for a new car, but the market wasn’t right yet – nothing really appealed to me yet, and without a solid incentive, I just couldn’t justify it to myself – so I bought a bike instead :D
Time has moved on, however, and certain developments finally made it a good time to buy something new. What with the dangers of global warming (fuck this ‘climate change’ crap, I call it what it is), I figured it was time to get out of the gasoline-drinking car lifestyle and go electric. So in August of 2021, I put an order in for a Tesla Model Y – in Blue, to match the bike ;)
The original estimated delivery date was late November / December, but that quickly got pushed into January 2022. It held there for a bit and I got distracted and wasn’t watching it, but shortly after Musk announced the deal for selling a bunch of Model 3’s to Alamo my delivery estimate slid out to March.
From there it drifted around, until finally it settled down into late May, which I was actually pretty good with, considering I had a week off of work first week of June. Maybe I’d be able to do a road trip or something?
Well, life came along and Tolerant got laid low with a bout of the ‘Rona the last week of May, so I wasn’t that distraught when the delivery date slipped out another week. Eventually, however, it arrived!
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Considering how things work for our household, though, that meant it was time to let the Subaru go on to a new owner. Tesla gave us a pretty low-ball offer for trade-in, and I can’t really blame them what with the dinged-up door, but I wanted more out of it so I put her up on the Interwebs. I didn’t have a lot of patience for chasing the maximum payout for selling her, so I basically talked the first person to test drive it into a price I could live with and called it good.
So 130 thousand miles later, Sheila the Subaru Outback has moved on to a new owner.
June 23rd, 2022 at 7:19 am
Sheila was a solid set o’ wheels and make no mistake. A few foul-weather rather hairy commutes would’ve been hairier in some lesser vehicle.