Ford Maintenance, Saturday Thunderstorm & The Sikh Shooting

I dropped off my car last Tuesday for it’s 21,000 mile maintenance plan, a dash rattle, a rear dash rattle, a strange steering wheel buzz that sounded kind of cool but shouldn’t be there, a wheel imbalance and the massaging drivers seat that had a mind of it’s own. This was the first service outside of the maintenance oil changes. My $38,000 2004 Acura TL had been in the shop 18 times in the same time period for a list as long as your arm. Most wouldn’t hear the rattles or feel the imbalance, my wife thinks I’m obsessive, I can’t help it if I feel anything out of balance or have freakishly good ears or that this car is THAT quiet.

On Friday I picked it up and they had fixed the steering noise, balanced and rotated the wheels/tires, repaired the front dash rattle, the rear dash rattle and could not duplicate the massaging seat inflating on its own. It was fantastic to drive with no rattles again, ok, let me explain the rattles a bit. The newly designed 2010 Ford Taurus was designed to take on Acura and the likes of the Lexus E350 and beat much more expensive cars in cabin noise. It succeeded, the car is tomb quiet at any speed, maybe too quiet, shhhhhh don’t tell my wife.

When I test drove the car back in January 2010 I was biased against it. I for years felt the Taurus was a rental fleet car. The Ford Five Hundred in my view was a better name for their top of the line car so when I got the call from my salesman that a new candy apple red model came in with everything except the SHO option and Navigation I went to check it out just for the heck of it. I miss-took it for the SHO because it has the SHO candy red paint job and the SHO wheels/tires. I thought it was gorgeous!

I did however have a hard time with a “Taurus” costing nearly $35,000, this is Acura, Infinity and Lexus territory. Heck a full blown loaded Taurus Limited with all options is north of 40k!! What balls for Ford to use the Taurus name on such an expensive awesome car! I told my salesman 2 years ago when we found out about the re-design that I would never buy a $30k plus car named “Taurus”, the car is worthy of a better name, like the Ford Five Hundred. So what did I do after the test drive, I bought it of course!

Anyway the guys at the Ford dealer fixed the issues but today on the way home one of the wheel weights fell off and the imbalance is back. Drat, so I’m calling them tomorrow to schedule a rebalance and unlike Acura I know they will handle it. I have done business with Ron Hopkins Ford since 1983, they always do their best to handle any issues that come up.

On the the thunderstorm in Saturday, it was AWESOME!!!!! Power went out down the street and there was 50+ MPH winds and thunder and lightning, simply awesome! Hopefully nobody got hurt, I feel guilty about enjoying storms like that one if people get hurt but watching mother nature, especially after months of drought can be so beautiful.

Next weekend I start getting the rig ready  for our upcoming vacation, 25 days and counting! We are heading to Shipshewana, Indiana and Elkhart, Indiana to enjoy 9 days of camping, museums and Amish country. We can’t wait.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the Sikh temple, another lunatic has caused families to lose loved ones and lives are changed forever because of the actions of one lunatic. No words can convey how people feel for the needless loss of life, I wish I knew the right words to say.