Not A Car Guy

  I borrowed a 2021 Volvo XC40 Recharge for a few hours (thanks Rob!), which I used to drive from San Francisco to Sonoma and back. Overall, I really liked it -- comfortable, easy to drive, excellent audio system, and plenty of power (perhaps too much, see below). It also has the advantage of actually fitting in our garage (made possible by power folding wing mirrors), which is something that neither the Tesla Model Y nor the Ford Mach-e can say.  Here are some impressions, in no particular order:  It feels like a regular car.  Some EVs (see, e.g., Tesla) seem committed to making the EV experience feel very different from regular ICE cars, leaning into huge screens and new interface conventions. This Volvo is not like that. It all feels very familiar. There's a screen, but there's also the familiar window buttons, steering wheel buttons (real buttons, not touch/swipe, thank god), buttons for defrost. Nor have they departed from familiar digital dash cluster design (speedometer

  The time has come to sum up my one year of #SClassLife in the 2015 S550 sedan.  Final mileage tally = 7,441 miles. I'm actually kind of surprised that we put that many miles on it. Ultimately, I think that comes down to Jennifer's surprising affinity for it, plus one long road trip to San Diego and back.  Overall impressions? Let me offer you three: Let me get that for you.  That's basically how I'd sum up the S550. From the soft-close doors to powered trunk lid to the 360 degree overhead camera to the self-parking feature to the Disctronic+ self-driving system, the whole vibe is aimed at minimizing the effort of driving. It makes long drives far less tiring.  It's a sleeper . The S550 is reads to most people as "just another Mercedes sedan" and thus is effectively invisible (at least in San Francisco, where every third car seems to be a Mercedes). In my year of ownership, I think only two people ever commented on the car, which was a stark contrast to t

  In 2019, I turned the voyage to and from Coachella into a multi-day roadtrip , which led to discovering lots of beautiful central California roads. I decided to do it again for 2023, racking up another ~1,100 miles in beautiful "superbloom" weather. My faithful steed, a 2018 Mazda MX-5 Miata, did not disappoint.  Day One: SF to Santa Maria San Francisco to Santa Maria via 309 miles of California back roads, including some of my very favorites (Carmel Valley to Paso Robles). Beautiful weather, if a bit windy and chilly. But wow, there are a lot of pot holes, thanks to the recent rains. As in 2019, I started by taking Highway 1 down to Half Moon Bay, then up to Skyline Drive, and down from the mountains to Felton via Highway 9, still one of my favorite twisty Miata roads, even if there was a bit more traffic this year. Then back on a relatively boring stretch of Highway 1 to Castroville.  From there I drove into Salinas and then over the Laureles Grade (which I did in 2019) i

Everyone knows that a Mercedes S Class is an expensive car to own. That's partly why they depreciate so quickly. Well, this car more than lived up to that reputation, proving to be far and away the most expensive car to own of those I've discussed on this blog (compare 2018 Mazda Miata , 2010 Honda Fit , 2002 Porsche 911 Turbo , 1965 Chevy Corvette ).  Deep breath. Total one-year cost of ownership = $27,853. Holy smokes. $2,321/month. I could have (maybe should have) leased a new one for that (although the shortest leases are 24 months, so I'd have ended up spending a lot more total).  The inflated pandemic used car market certainly accounts for a bunch of this. Yes, I knew it was a bad time to buy, and yes I overpaid to get the car I wanted , but I didn't count on another $10k of depreciation in one year. The problem with selling an S550 is the plethora of cheap, minimally optioned cars out there. If you want to get above those prices, you need to find someone who valu

So many features. It's an infinitely deep well, and I suspect most S Class owners don't even use a majority of the little features that Mercedes engineers throw into this car. After a year's ownership, I'm not sure I've done more than scratch the surface. But, alas, my year of #SClassLife has ended, so let me sum up for posterity a bunch of little things that I did use and appreciate:  Media Register : these cars have a built-in 10 gigabyte hard drive that can copy CDs from the CD changer or copy files from a USB drive. It's a built-in iPod, essentially. I'm guessing most owners have no idea, especially as "Media Register" is hardly an evocative name. Rear Seat Privacy Screens : window tinting? Way too low rent for an S Class. Instead, there are perforated screens that roll up from the rear doors and rear deck, allowing rear seat passengers to obscure themselves without any cheap-ass "tinted windows."  360 Camera : in addition to having s

  It has been one year since I brought the S Class into my life. Which means it's time to let it go, as my "try interesting cars, fully depreciated" experiment isn't meant to be about long-term ownership. Plus, the S550 isn't really ideally suited to city living (it's so big!).  After listing the car on Autotrader and craigslist, it wasn't too long before a buyer materialized. But during the course of the purchase, he arranged for a pre-purchase inspection (turns out, there are now mobile providers who come out to inspect the car -- in this case, SafeBuy ).  Wouldn't you know it, a code scan turned up a bad oxygen sensor. Further looking around revealed an oil leak that was traced to the front cam cover seals. And while that was all being fixed, it revealed a variety of aging plastic bits (thermostat, coolant lines) that had developed cracks and needed replacing. Oof. Here's what needed doing:  Oxygen sensor ($389) Front engine cover gaskets &

The short version: my S550 came equipped with SplitView, but by the time the car came to me, the accompanying wireless headphones and remote control were missing. I've concluded it's not worth replacing them, because (a) an iPad is way better for video these days; (b) a previous owner already "unlocked" the screen so that it displays video to both the driver and passenger; and (c) sourcing and programming the headphones and remote would probably run ~$360, which ain't worth it.  Now, the long version.  What is SplitView, you ask? It's an option (sticker price = $710) that allows the front-seat passenger to watch video (like from a DVD) on the COMAND display, while the driver sees a different image (like navigation) on that same display. Mercedes explains :  Two sets of pixels can be displayed, and a mask on the screen filters out one set or the other, based on viewing angle. The COMAND controller determines the driver's content, while the passenger uses a