A Clean Car Is Almost A New Car

“You should get it detailed,” Helaine suggested a week ago. She wanted her car ‘spiffified’ too and getting mine done too might have had some psychological value.

I remember the day I got my current car. It was pretty exciting. I’d been driving a nondescript Toyota. I was moving up to something a lot sportier. My little two seater convertible turned heads.

It still does though it’s 11&#189 years old now.

Even a Mercedes can be a practical purchase if you’re willing to drive it forever. It’s been mine free and clear for years. The state has even stopped charging its yearly property tax on it!

“You should get it detailed,” Helaine suggested a week ago. She wanted her car ‘spiffified’ too and getting mine done too might have had some psychological value.

I called Leroy, one of the guys I work with who runs a side business bringing cars back to that new car look. All I can say is “Wow.” For Helaine’s car “Double Wow.”

You can easily judge a car’s relative condition the same way a woman judges a man’s relative condition–by the shoes. My tires are back to the tough, hard, semi-glossy black they were before the road and brake debris got to them. The body is fully glossy. Inside the carpets are clean and fresh and the dashboard supple. The engine block looks just as it did when it was first shipped to America.

If it weren’t for the 11&#189 years of dings and pits on the hood you’d never know this car wasn’t just off the lot! That goes doubly for the windshield. I need a rock to hit it so I can get a new one (Please–don’t help me fulfill my wish in this regard).

There is one problem which has so far evaded repair. I’m only posting it here with the thought that one of you might have an idea. A few years ago I left some change on my dashboard. As I drove and then braked it flew into the little slot between the windshield and body where it now lives. The slot is too small for me to reach. Now every time I make a sharp turn I hear the coins moving across car!

6 thoughts on “A Clean Car Is Almost A New Car”

  1. If you can find one of those paint stirrers used in hardware stores, that might be able to get down there. The only other thing I can of is one of those fork shaped scrapers that come with a George Foreman grill.

    If I think of anything else, I will let you know.

  2. “The state has even stopped charging its yearly property tax on it!”

    Wow, have I missed the bus. I’ve been paying my Karmann Ghia property tax to the town for 15 years. And I still get a bill every year. I guess Mercedes really are special.

  3. yikes. Geoff, I had the same thing with a couple of dimes in my 5 year old Hyundai.
    When I took it to get serviced, the tech told me that it would cost 1/4 the book value of the car to take things apart, retrieve them, and reassemble.

    I worked for a guy who told me that you could tell how important a client was by how polished their shoes were. I bought shoe polish that night!

  4. The fact that you’ve been able to get 11 years of service out of an SLK is incredible, given the build quality fall from grace that Mercedes suffered in the ’90s/early ’00s. However, I guess it depends more on the mileage on the odometer than the years-since-built.

Leave a Reply to Lou Lange Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *