Splorer

 "No loss should be more regrettable to us than losing our time, for that is irretrievable." - Xeno of Citium

 We made a run to town Friday to purchase a replacement dishwasher.  The old one is having an issue getting going.  Sometimes it starts OK, while other times it gurgles for a few minutes, but never goes through the cycle.  You have to open and close the door each time to re-start the cycle, then hang out for a couple of minutes to see if it is really going to function.  The wife has been getting mad about it.  

This was not something I was interested in trying to repair, and the dishwasher is already 18 years old at this point.  So we went to town to see about getting a replacement - same brand, same model, just an updated version.  After the debacle with the refrigerator last year, I was deeply suspicious of the big-box stores, so we tried a regular appliance store.  

I am happy to report that they had what we wanted in stock, didn't have a sales guy hovering over us, and quickly arranged to have an installer deliver the new one and to yard out the old one.  There will be an update here once that's done.  

Afterwards, the wife wanted to drive to the Post Falls Dodge dealer and give them a piece of her mind.  The last time we had her car in for service, I had requested they get the heater working - possibly to include a flush of the heater core - and to repair the occasional glitch in the back-up camera.  They fixed neither or those issues, at a cost of about $1000.  

I've been unhappy with their service bay since we bought the vehicle, about 11 years ago.  It hasn't improved since the Covid pandemic.  They told my wife that the next step is to replace the heater core, which requires removal of the dash, and that the price would be $1900 for that.  At that point, I was trying to mentally determine the value of the vehicle, and coming up with numbers that didn't justify a $1900 investment.  What if a new heater core didn't fix the issue, and it was an air damper problem????

I know how to fix both the heater and backup camera issue:  Replace the car, and (more importantly) replace the dealership with one that has decent customer service.  The car is getting pretty tired anyway, with 140,000 miles (225,000 km) on it.  

We left and headed for a different car dealership.  She eyeballed a few vehicles and found them wanting from a size perspective - Ford Bronco, Toyota 4Runner, Honda Pilot.  She drove a few used models around - Ford Expedition, - too huge,  Subaru Ascent, - difficult ingress/egress, and a Ford Explorer.

She was happy with the Explorer, and it seemed like a very nice vehicle to me... However, it was used with almost 7000 miles (11000 km), and they wanted almost $47k for it.  We went home to sleep on it - since we never make large purchase decisions on the same day we consider them.  The following day we decided that yes, it would be an Explorer, but maybe we should check alternative dealerships.  The Ford dealership showed that they had one "in transit".  We stopped by to inquire.

The Explorer that we were interested in was sitting in a dirt lot, filthy, with the clear plastic seat covers still on.  All of the interior panels were bundled in shrink wrap.  Obviously, none of the dealer prep had been done.  But it was significantly less expensive than the used one we had been looking at - because it didn't have a "moon roof" option - something we don't give a crap about anyway.  So after about 5 hours or so of wasting our lives, we drove it home in the near-dark.  

At least we weren't buying someone else's headache.  We will create our own.  Yep, it had 6.4 miles on it when we headed home.  I really hope she likes this car, and the service bay at the Ford dealer...

Guess I'll be working for a bit longer than I'd planned LOL.  On the other hand, going through another winter without a heater was a lot to ask.