adventures in driving

[the_siobhan]

Left Chicago at 4pm on Sunday. Arrived home 22 hours later after dropping the_axel off at work and the car off at bcholmes's apartment.

We hit not one, but two blinding snowstorms on the way home. Axe got to feel what it's like when a car completely loses traction and starts fishtailing all over the snow. (But I regained control before we hit the ditch -- Go me!) And I was very thankful for the electric motor in the Prius because we spent many hours sitting in long line-ups on the highway and didn't have to worry about running out of gas. All that thing needs is a porta-potty in the back seat and an internet connection and it's the perfect inclement weather vehicle.

By 4AM I was utterly exhausted and it was about ten degrees too cold to just kip in the car. So Axe bundled me into a motel room and I did my best imitation of a dead body for the next 6 hours.

I don't think I'm going outside again today.

Comments

[disastrid.livejournal.com]

!

i was wondering where you kids had gotten to.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I've been stranded somewhere for three out of five Saturnalia's.

Tradition!

[mr-sharkey.livejournal.com]

I think you may be onto something - survival touring. Sleeping in the car would have been a bad idea - windchill was down around -40.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

That was Axel's take - I was too flogged to be able to tell.

[edwards.livejournal.com]

We spent a few hours in the car, but missed all the snow (and missed you guys, bah!) - drove from TO to PEI. Rental truck was a Dodge Durango, so despite having the curse of the soccer mom, we actually got to enjoy seriously sure-footed handling on mixed snow/tarmac at 130k+

Anyway, sad we didn't manage to hook up when we were in town. Have a good Christmas and such.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Yikes! I'd forgotten you guys were coming into town.

I've been working afternoon shift right up until we took off, so it would have been awkward anyway - still, it's too bad I didn't get to catch up with you.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Ah, *real* weather! I can wish for snow here because it rarely lasts long - just long enough to make the place look pretty, then that's it for another year.

How long have you had the Prius? I'm curious about the things from a technical POV, and know someone who'd really like one - I'm not so sure about reliability and cost of maintenance/repairs though.

helping

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Snow here falls in quantities large enough to completely shut everything down at least once a year.

The Prius belongs to bcholmes. It had a few problems related to the fact that it was the first production year to be released here, so there were the expected number of bugs. Subsequent model years seem to be more problem-free.

Having said that, at 4 years old, it's an excellent car. The fuel efficiency is phenomenal. It's been fantastically reliable.

My biggest problem with the car is that it's designed for people a good 4-5 inches shorter than me, so it's uncomfortable for long drives. (Anything over about 5 hours.) When we bought the car we were told that other models were going to be getting the hybrid engines, so that problem was going to go away soon. I've yet to see those models materialize.

Repairs (so far) don't seem to be any more expensive than for any other car. The biggest problem has been that the dealership has a limited number of people trained to work on it, so getting an appointment to get it looked after can take longer. Nothing major has yet gone wrong with it however, so we'll see how that goes. It seems that more and more people are trained to actually do the repairs the older it gets, so by the time we start running into serious wear issues we should have no problem getting it serviced. In theory, anyway.

The main battery is garanteed for the life of the vehicle. I would expect the internal combustion engine would last a little longer than normal because it doesn't run all the time, but that's just me guessing.

Re: helping

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

I never did get around to saying "thanks for this", so, "thanks for this"! My friend readit and her response was "I'd better start saving up". =:-)