Never Say Never Again

Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

Regular friends of the decanter may be curious as to the fate of Middle Gel’s ill-starred Volkswagen Tiguan, about which Ol’ Robbo so recently ranted here (again).

Well, I’ll tell you.

As I reported in my prior post, the thing’s latest attack of the vapours consisted of a sudden fit of stalling out on the gel at traffic lights.  She duly took it in to the local shop.  A couple days later she called to ask what progress had been made to isolate the problem and fix it.  The shop told her they were stymied:  The on-board computer had recorded no diagnostic codes, so they were going to have to take the thing apart bit-by-bit to figure out the problem.  Oh, and by the bye, while they were mucking about in its insides they had detected another $800 part that was about to go and needed replacing……

Rage duly ensued.  The Gel gave the shop steward a piece of her mind.  (I overheard her.)  To be fair, even he confessed he’d never seen anything quite like her car’s history and recommended that she chuck it.  And despite what I previously wrote here, I reluctantly had to agree.  However, one thing was plain in Ol’ Robbo’s tiny braims:  Never again would I have to do with Volkswagen.  Therefore, the Gel and I started pricing out alternate late-model, high-mileage SUV’s. (Or rather, she started pricing them out and I kept saying, “Hooom, hommm, we’ll see.”)  She even went to far as to make an appointment to go see one – a Ford Escape, I believe – at a CarMax somewhere in Murrland today.

Then Mrs. R stepped in. (She’d been away when all this came down.  More on that later.)

Two things about Mrs. R:  Her father owned a very successful car dealership back in the day, so she knows the biznay.  Also, she loves to haggle.  So she did the research, ran some numbers, surveyed some contacts, and came to the conclusion that in fact it made the most sense to go straight back to the VW people and cut a deal.

The result?  We’re leasing a brand-new 2020 Tiguan.**  Three years, fully covered, and the Gel can do with it what she wishes at the end.

From what I gather, Mrs. R, filled with righteous wrath, beat the VW people up one side of the street in getting maximum trade-in dollars for our prior lemon, then beat them back down the other side of the street on the new lease terms.  (Even her father was impressed.)  And the nicest thing was that it was all over and done before Ol’ Robbo even knew it was happening.  (She and Middle Gel went over yesterday while I was working.  I loathe car buying more than any other kind of biznay transaction and was dreading being dragged out to the lot today.)

That’s my Gels!

As for the new ride, despite my anti-Deutsch resolve here we are.  We shall see.  At this point Ol’ Robbo now is willing to allow that perhaps the last one was just a fluke.  This one causes us trouble, I’m going to visit the dealership toting a large garden gnome…..****

 

** Completely remodeled from the Gel’s prior ’14 (I think) 2012 (just saw the title) version.  I wouldn’t even have known what it was had I not been told.  And want to know how old I feel?  There’s no CD player in the thing.  When I mentioned this, Middle Gel said, “Who plays CD’s anymore?” My lawn.  Git!!

**** Spot the reference.