Project: Swagger Wagon

[Apoc]

So it's been about 14 months and 4,800 miles since we bought this machine.

I really, really like this car. People that see pictures say the seats look uncomfortable, but neither myself nor anyone else have had any comfort issues. I'm not auto-x the thing, so lateral support doesn't seem to be that big of a deal. If I had one complaint, it would be that the brake pedal feels too far to the left. Maybe it's cause I have short legs and like to sit pretty far back, but keeping my foot on the brake in traffic is not a natural position. On highways, which it doesn't see very often, the thing eats miles.

Last weekend it carried three adult males and camping gear without issues. Even fully loaded, it was pretty easy to jump on the gas and pass marginally slower vehicles in the opposite lane of travel. Cruising at 80, moderately aggressive driving, and climbing a few mountain ranges netted us ~27 mpg fully loaded (probably 4600 lbs). The shocks are perfect for every day driving, but I could definitely tell the ass end was fully loaded on our trip. One of my passengers drove the last 2.5 hours of our return and repeatedly commented about how low the car is and that "it's like driving my Mini." The car definitely feels longer than the GTI, but it feels much smaller in the city than one would expect - likely due to ride height.

It's been in the shop once, for an oil change, and I had them look at a squealing rear brake (when cold). There was build up on the rotor, so they removed it and ground the pads up a bit on both rears - no charge - thanks CPO! Other than that, there have been no issues... other than those caused by human error - like the wife scrapping bushes down one side when I asked her to pull to the side of the road so we could look something up on the internet. There were some pretty obvious scuffs in the clear coat that I never got around to fixing, because manual labor.

The car was pretty heinous after camping and we're making a switch from infant to toddler car seat, so I had the car heavily detailed inside and out yesterday with quality results (see pics). This came after the 500 mile road trip took us through central Washington, which is apparently bug country. I didn't think to snap a before picture, but there were serious bug guts that needed to be addressed. The detail shop actually commented they wish they took a before picture too. :lol:

I ended up buying a rooftop box, after much consternation. We're headed to the Oregon coast for vacation in a week and there's no way we're going to fit the things we need in the car with an toddler seat smack dab in the middle of the back seat. I think we could manage if I didn't mind packing things around my kid, but I don't want them to become projectiles in an accident. It's going on the car this weekend in prep for our trip; I'll post pictures once that's done.