The same day in the last month, I drove my first car home. I named it Goudaner. Today is its one month birthday. The odometer on the car goes to around 1600 KM already and I used about 3.5 cans of gasoline (140L). It is about 8L/100KM gasoline consumption. It is not bad in the traffic conditions in Shanghai.
In the last month, I was very happy with the car. The only thing is, I didn’t find much time to take care of it. I hate rain in Shanghai. After it rains, the car is covered with dirt and I have to wash it. Maybe it is due to the heavy construction in Shanghai.
This morning, for the first time, the right side of the car was scraped by the wall when I tried to pull the car into the parking lot. I was heart-broken about it. It is not a big matter and can be easily repaired. The dealer promised me to replace the front protection bar for me free of charge. What a coincidence. I have to be more careful to drive it in the future. :-(
Sorry to hear about your car. It seems something like that always happens within first year of owning a new vehicle. That same situation has happened to me with three of the cars I have owned, within the first year they both had some minor body damage. After the first year nothing else has occurred.
This is informative website for my current vehicle.
http://www.xterraownersclub.com/index.html
Thanks.
Aieeeee, yes. That first one hurts! Rest assured, there will be more. Good to get the first one over with, but good you had some time with it staying all “brand new”. My son’s first brand new car got badly scratched in a parking lot the second week he had it — by some very mean person who gouged a deep line along the whole left side with something sharp. He felt bitter about that for a very long time. But since you have such low expectations for your ugly little car anyway, some scratches on the side are no big deal, right? ;-) I’m glad you can get it fixed, Jian Shuo — and for no cost! Maybe because you’ve been nice to him, the dealer is trying to help make up for that reduction in price after you bought it after all.
Hello Jian Shuo, I saw an interesting article at Yahoo and just thought I would pass this on to you.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=516&ncid=731&e=5&u=/ap/20040417/ap_on_re_as/china_drive_in_nights
I thought the article interesting because of your recent automotive purchase. It is kind of sad that the “drive-in” movie theaters are all but gone here in California, (only 2 left in California). I have a lot of great memories of going to the movies with family and friends. As more Chinese people are able to afford the purchase of a car, maybe the old “drive-in” theater will make a comeback in your country. Maybe that’s all that is needed to breath new life into them here in our country, “a different take of something familiar.”
aiii….sorry to hear about the scratch, since it was a brand new car, if it was a second hand car then might felt differently otherwise. i like to ask you in which area did you purchase your new home? is it a house or just another apartment, because i kinda remember you said once that you will have a little garden at the back of the house??
Interesting article, Paul! I miss drive-ins here, although I only went to one a couple of times when I was a teenager. It would be fun to re-visit as an “old married couple” now and see if we’re still supple enough to contort into the positions required for effective “necking”. The operator of the one mentioned in that article may soon find that allowing “bags of snacks” to be brought in car trunks will erode his meager food concession profits. Difficult to search effectively for that kind of contraband, though. Thanks for the memories :)