His hands are touching the paint, and my dad is totally fine with it.

What have we learned? Pops loves Ted. This photo is proof.

Also, related, Gram loves Ted, too:

He was very enthusiastic about the spray hose.

But was somewhat less helpful when it came to the soap part of the process.

Fun times.  Can’t wait till he can wash our cars for real. Every weekend. Right after he’s done mowing the lawn.

Nothing says “you need to get a car very, very soon” like having to wake up your wife and toddler well before their normal rise-and-shine time to drive you to work in their car so they’re not stranded at home the whole day.

The last time I bought a car for myself, I was just out of college, living with my folks, gainfully “dot-com” employed and without a need for my car to have LATCH seat connectors.  The Celica was fun, a little different than the Integras and Eclipses that seemed to dominate the import scene, and offered a somewhat more reliable ride when compared to other speedy cars in 2001.

Things are quite different now.  Spending a third of my monthly income on your car no longer seems like such a spectacular idea, and four doors are a requirement.

Based on a few factors – price, a week long test drive of the previous generation Corolla four years ago, and the fact that Toyota was heavily discounting their cars last month – we picked up a dark gray 2010 model.  It’s the base, so no fancy GPS nav or lazer guns, but comes with lots of good things for a commuter like me.  Ride quality is smooth, and the motor is matched up well for the size of the car. Steering is fine, but noticeably less direct than the Celica.

Unlike the Celica which came with a revolutionary war-era cassette player (and CD player), the Corolla came with an mp3 player and iPod plugin port, which fills me with happiness.  It also has lots of storage spots inside and two glove boxes! Really…who carries 2 sets of driving gloves these days when they drive?  The steering wheel is telescopic, which is new for me, and makes for a pretty comfy driving position.

It also comes with good gas mileage.  Right now I’m getting 34mpg in my mixed highway/traffic-light commute each day, and that’s without trying.   And its a 5-speed!  I’d much rather choose my own adventure gears when driving, so getting one in manual was great.

The car has lots of thoughtfully designed components that make it feel much more substantial – like the afore mentioned second glove box, a gas mileage indicator and a charge port hidden under the center arm rest with a tiny groove in the plastic that lets the recharger cord stick out.   And a back seat that normal humans can sit in!   This feature lets Ted ride comfortably with Kate and I, and that’s pretty cool.

And the speedometer and tachometer, check this out:

I didn’t notice it until after driving it for a few days.  It’s like the car is waking up its gauges with a big yawn-stretch.

It was the first new car I bought, right out of college.  I loved driving it, loved driving around with Kate in it, and did not love putting a car seat in the very small back seat.

Here’s a photo from the fall of 2001.

Here he is in the front seat of a new Dodge Challenger. Such a nice car on the outside. Kind of so-so on the inside.

This is the engine from an Audi R8. This will be my next car, assuming my lottery plans pan out.

Ted likes motorcycles.

I was uninjured, luckily enough, and we have spare cars around, so things could have been way worse. Still a drag to have a working vehicle taken out of service like that, though.

Its certainly sad to see the car go, it’s been through a lot with us.  When Kate first got it (while still at school in Newport), she did not tell me.  When I came down to visit her, she walked me by it where it was parked and asked me if I liked the way it looked.  I said I did, and then she said lets take it for a ride!  I was about to shout car thief! and run, but when she produced the keys I held back.  

The Sentra was also the car we packed up and moved to NC with, the car I drove Kate to the hospital in for Ted’s big day, and the car we drove him home in when he still had his own new car smell.

As much as cars are mostly devices that move us about, they’re also markers for spans within a life. I know when I think about the past, I usually think of either the car my folks had at the time, or the car I was driving around it.  

Here’s a pic of the Sentra in shinier days.

The first step was explaining the whole “10 and 2″ o’clock hand positions.  Ted countered that he couldn’t see out the windshield, and that he really wants to eat the ‘cruise control’ buttons. 

In traffic, Ted got a little too confident and kept looking at his mother.  I had to shout ‘Keep your eyes on the road!‘ more than once.  That boy!

Soon he learned to focus.  It’s tough to tell in this shot, but he’s actually parallel parking our car into a really tight spot.  He’s using those side mirrors to his advantage.

Ted seemed to really like driving, and agreed to take a leg on our trip up north next month… but says he doesn’t want to drive through Jersey because he hates the tolls.  Fair enough, I said.

ps – We would never, ever drive without Ted completely secured in his car seat.  The car was off, keys in my pocket. 

Per the Aftervictory Code of Secrecy, all I can say is that I’m still a web designer, but now working in the public sector. It’s quite a thing to change a job when you’re the sole source of income, but they made me a pretty outstanding offer. So far so good there.

Two years
Hard to believe but it’s been two years for us here in the northern of the two Carolinas. It’s gone by so fast! Still a little weird to write ‘NC’ on our return address labels.  It’s still good though, and still tough to be away from our family and friends.

Cars
We now have three cars, which for those keeping score us one more car than licensed operators. Kate and Ted cruise around in the Versa while I take either of the remaining vehicles to work.

Keeping versus trading in came down to value. While we would have received some money for a trade in, we get much more value out of having an extra car. By equally spreading the mileage over the older vehicles, hopefully we can delay having to purchase a commuter car for me for a while.

Television
As new parents, our TV time is pretty limited. After Ted goes down for the night, there’s only maybe an hour before we’re both asleep. We have to choose our viewing wisely.

We watch almost all our TV from the internet. Sites like Hulu.com and the various network websites allow us to watch what we please whenever we like, without having to pay for cable tv.

Right now we watch The Daily Show, How I Met Your Mother, and the very dark comedy Its Always Sunny in Philidelphia.

If you haven’t checked out Hulu.com yet, you need to. It’s way easy to use, free, extremely well thought out in it’s design, and has a ton of shows, many from long ago.

 

Really all new car purchase decions should be made after a 700 mile trip with a six month old baby in the back. They could call it ‘real world’ testing. Lucky for us, the car performed admirably.

Storage
The hatchback held all our stuff with relative ease (says the guy who didn’t pack it).  I think we would have been able to pack the same amount in a sedan, but it’s nice to know the room is there if we need it.

Interior storage was well used on the trip, filling available spaces with maps and sodas and toys for Ted.  I think the cupholders in the Yaris would have caved under the pressure of the large coffees and sodas that kept us going on the trip.

Seats
The seats remained comfortable for the entire trip, with no weird cramping.  I sat in the back seat with Ted for some of the trip and found it to be very napworthy.

Kate remarked that the front seats weren’t as comfortable for sleeping as the Celica seats are, and I tend to agree. The side bolstering in the Celica is both nice for turning and keep you in place while napping… but the Versa seats are certainly comfortable enough.

The Versa seats are vertically adjustable, something I hadn’t had in a car before. The headroom is great and when the seat is elevated, you get an almost van-like view of the road. The visibility is great, but you need to watch your head when you exit the vehicle, as the rigid steel door frame hurts when it smacks into your forehead.

Performance
I’m quite sure that the CVT will be the automatic transmission of the future. Hill climbs make themselves known (as they do in most 4-cylinder engine cars) but there are no jarring gear changes through the hills of Virginia.  When one has a sleeping infant in the back seat, one appreciates any amount of improved smoothness.

It makes me curious as to how well the 6-speed manual Versa performs in comparisson.

Baby Compatibility
When we test drove the Versa initially, we spent a fair amount of time at the dealership test fitting car seats. We were happy to discover that Ted would be able to travel with us safely. And unlike the Celica, it’s possible to recline the seat in front slightly, preventing a post-roadtrip back pain from having the seat straight up.

We were able to keep all the requisite baby gear in the passenger compartment with no trouble. There’s also plenty of legroom for a passenger sitting/napping next to Ted.

This trip validated our thinking about this car purchase. We may have had more room with a Hummer H1, and we certainly would have arrived more quickly with an Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione, but neither of those were as important as arriving safely and comfortably.

We sat in a Toyota Corolla, but it had expanded to “mid-size” since we last drove one. Kind of a shame, wider and longer is not always an improvement.

While at the dealeship, we looked at a 2009 Toyota Yaris, in sedan form. It’s shape resembled a shrunken Camry, and was sized smaller then the Corolla. Optioned correctly (airbags, mp3 connection), it would have come with everything we needed.

The dealer had just unloaded a black 4door Yaris from a delivery truck, so we took it for a ride.

It was the base model, so it had roll up windows and manual locks and mirrors, but the engine was the same so it seemed like we could make a judgement based on that.

The engine was 106hp, so it’s not quote ready for the track, bit was able to move the car around safely due to it’s light weight.

The interior was comfortable enough, but both Kate and I questioned a few of the design decisions. The speedometer was in the center of the dash (vertically in line with the stereo) instead of being directly in front of the driver. I’ve seen this before in Scions.

It was a strange sensation, driving without a speedometer in it’s normal spot… like the speedometer was broken and all your driving feedback came from what you could see/hear/feel. I imagine you’d get use to of but I’m not sure long term if I’d like it.

Also, cupholders were mounted directly in front of air vents, and were quite small (soda can sized). Not a huge deal, but I could see it growing to annoy me.

The temperature controls were cool though, 3 dials control everything. Features are great, but it’s nice just to adjust the temperature without looking away from the road.

Ultimately this would be an ok car to own, especially for the short money invovled, but it all depends on how you feel about the driving experience.

The dealership was ultimately unable to find one with the options we wanted, and really it was for the best, as we’re both much happier with the Versa. It was a little more money, but a lot more car.