Ma and Pa Kettle get an Edge

[B.C.C. Lapp]

Okay, laugh at us if you will but we still ain't quite calmed down yet.    Got to fill in the back story first here.  Week before last a warning alarm about a parking brake problem started going off in Mrs. Lapps F150. Tried everything and could not turn it off.  We get it into the ford dealership last Tuesday and the chaos starts.    First they ordered the wrong parts.  Then they ordered the right parts but the order got messed up and they didn't come in.   Friday (yesterday) rolls around and we still don't have the truck back.   I talk to the service manager and she says we wont get it back now till next week.   At this point I'm getting frustrated with their screw ups and tell her that wont due.  She says come in and get a loaner vehicle.  I say no.  Its a 70 mile round trip for us to the dealership. I tell her to bring it to me.  We argue, I point out that its all their mistakes that got us here and the fact that this truck has only 32,000 miles on it and this shouldn't even be happening.  She agrees to send the loaner to me.   
And an hour later it shows up.  Its a little SUV.  An Edge to be exact.   The first thing I notice is that the state inspection sticker is two months out of date.   I call her and tell her and she says she knows.  A dealership that has a half dozen inspection mechanics sends out an uninspected loaner to a customer.   Unbelievable.
Any way none of that bothered us much.  Vehicles break down and customer service aint what it was twenty years ago.  You have to expect this from time to time.   But then we drove that Edge to town.  Oh my.  That we didn't expect.
My wife's truck is a 2917. Has 32,000 miles on it.  She don't drive much or far. Mostly back and forth between the farms.   It has roll up windows, matts instead of carpet, no power locks or power seats. No back up camera and all that garbage.  My truck is a 2010. Also a basic w0rk truck.  I just sold my 2006 3/4 ton pickup.  It had no frills or unnecessary frills either.   We look high and low to find trucks like that and we drive em till they wont go no more.   And we have not driven any thing else for many many years. 
And then we got in that Edge.   We hop in.  I have the fob thing.  Guys, it has no key.  OOOOKKKKKAAAAYYYY. I see a button that says start.  I push it.  The car don't start but my dang seat starts moving. I figure out I got to push the brake down to make it start.  And my seat starts moving again.  It puts me right up to the wheel. It takes a few minutes but I figure out how to adjust the seat. and off we go.  But wait. There aint no lever on the column to shift. How do I put this thing in gear?  And the wheel is all the way up and their ain't no lever to move it. Its all electric but where?   I cant find anything. I finally find a selector switch for a dang gear.  Now were getting somewheres. About a mile down the road and I'm still struggling with this wheel when I notice Mrs Lapp is kind of wiggling around in her seat.  Then shes lifting up and trying to see the seat.  I ask what up.  She says there is cold air blowing on my butt.  HUH? I check and dang if there aint cold air blowing out of her seat.   Its right about then that I notice I'm very warm and MY seat is getting HOT.   I'm not kidding boys. My seat was getting hot. And then I realize the steering wheel is getting hot.   To make a long story short by the time we got home and parked this high tec nightmare we were both a nervous wreck.  It aint going to move again.   We will drive my dirty greasy saw dust covered old truck till Tuesday. 
This world is becoming a computerized mess.   None of it is needed or necessary.   This is why a pick up truck cost twice what it should.   Wheres it going to end?   Mrs Lapp says she will drive my work horses and wagon to town before she ever owns something like that Edge.   Shes not kidding. She can  harness and drive a team of horses but this Edge put her over the edge.  :D
My 33 year old son laughed long and hard at our story.  My 31 year old daughter looked thoughtful and I know what she is thinking.  She would choose the haflinger's as well. :D

[21incher]

I bet you didn't read the 500 page manual before taking the drive  ;D

[chet]

Been there done that, I feel yer pain.  :D :D :D 

[barbender]

 I'm on the other side of this. I've come to enjoy the comforts of modern vehicles and equipment. Yes there is a learning curve to figure everything out, but in the end it's a much more comfortable ride. In Minnesota, a heated seat and steering wheel is something most people won't give up once they've had them.

Same thing in the forestry equipment I run. Heated and cooled seats, computerized control settings. If I was in and out, hand cutting logs a 82 Franklin forwarder would work fine and ve better suited to the level of production. But for something you sit in 10-14 hours a day, putting load after load on the landing, I wouldn't give up a single comfort.

[scsmith42]

Man, I'm laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes!

Great story B.C.

[Mooseherder]

My wife uses the heated seats to keep takeout food warm by putting a blanket over it. :D

[barbender]

Haha I love that kind of ingenuity!😂

[B.C.C. Lapp]

Mooseherder  Mrs. Lapp says that's certainly using her head alright but she herself still doesn't want a car like that even if she can bake  a pie in the glovebox.   ;D

[SawyerTed]

Ma and Pa! :D  I've been there so that may be why it's so funny. 

Those extras, they are extras, are more important the more time spent in a vehicle. 

Our camper tow vehicle has all the bells and whistles cameras, heated seats, cooled seats, split AC and heat front and back, heated steering wheel and so on.  Some of those extras sure make it comfortable on long trips.  I know I'm not as tired after driving 5 or 6 hours as with other vehicles.

[thecfarm]

Wife wrecked the van about a month ago.
She got a rental, Rav4.
She had to go inside and ask where to put the key in to start it.  ;D
But the van had heated seats and steering wheel.

[trapper]

Every time we rent A car I ask them to show me how to run it.

[Southside]

I had to move an employees Jeep Whatever this summer.  Backing it up I could not see out of the mirrors as she is about a foot shorter than I am and I didn't think it would be nice to adjust all of the mirrors, the back up camera moves side to side when you turn the wheel and that just didn't work for me, so I did what any farm boy would do, opened the drivers side door so I could careen my neck around and see where I was going.  BANG!!  I ran right over an 18" log right in the middle of the driveway - at least that was what I though happened when the thing locked up tighter than a chainsaw run on straight gas.  Turns out one of the modern safety features of these Jeeps is an ejection seat, and it just about threw me out of the vehicle to prevent me from getting hurt because I had opened the door....Then it took me several minutes to figure out how to release the parking brake which was now engaged... Yea I stay away from all of that junk. 

[B.C.C. Lapp]

Every time we rent A car I ask them to show me how to run it.

Good tip Trapper. Ill remember that ever I ever rent a car.  Never have done that.

Woops I stand corrected.  I was just reminded I did in fact rent a car once about 19 years ago. ;D

[47sawdust]

The Haflingers would be my choice as well.My wife does not shy from hard work.I call her our little pulling pony.

[Sixacresand]

We are experiencing a learning curve  in a Nissan Rogue.  The extended warranty probably needs to be more for the electronics than for the drivetrain.  I heard toyota is experimenting with a simple truck.  rollup windows, no bells and whistles.

[Southside]

Had a rental car leaving the airport one time and it had that self shutting off engine that I had never experienced.  Sitting at a busy intersection when suddenly the car dies - WHAT?  I am pushing buttons trying frantically to get it to go when it decided to start again on its own. 

[moodnacreek]

And you are still young Mr. Lapp.  My go to town car is a '92 Ranger 4cyl. stick, no air, no power anything. My 1 ton is a '71 f350 and it has a v8!  The problem is I can't drive it to camp with it's 4-56 rear @ 80 mph.  When someone asks me to move their car I have to get the forklift.

[Don P]

Dad's truck had that engine shut off feature years before it was cool. You had to hold the clutch and sidefoot the brake while blipping the gas to keep it going.

I shoved the 80 Dodge into the shop a week or 2 ago. It got parked 12 years ago but was not a goner. When I lifted the hood it made me smile. There is room for a barc-o-lounger in there beside the bare 360, no bs under there, just the facts m'am. I'm going to try very hard to keep it to about 4 wires total.

[barbender]

 That's funny Don😂😂 That auto-shut off feature on the new rigs always reminds me of when I have lost a clutch, and had to shut my engine off at a light so I could start it in gear when the light turned green😁

[sawguy21]

Been there done that :D

[Resonator]

Had a rental car leaving the airport one time and it had that self shutting off engine that I had never experienced

Reminds me of driving semi for a big company fleet. Start it up to let it idle, and about a minute and a half later it would shut off. Didn't matter if it was 22° below zero it would still shut off. Also top speed was 62 mph no matter how far you pushed the pedal down or where you drove. You learned to be patient. :D

[Peter Drouin]

You learned to be patient. :D

:D :D :D :D :D

[sawguy21]

Years ago a friend had a driver on the second truck. Same number of trips and weight, same destination but the other truck burned a third more fuel so he had a speed limiter installed. Hot shot quickly figured it out, got mad and quit. Most trucks are now limited to 62 mph (100 km/hr).

[B.C.C. Lapp]

Finally got the pick up back and they took that Edge away.   To say Mrs. Lapp is happy would be an understatement.  Ten days it took them to fix a parking brake modual.  Makes me wonder how long it would take to repair something serious.

Ones things for sure, no more loaners.  Its amazing how much driving you don't have to do when you don't want to get within ten feet of the vehicle you'd have to drive.  :D

[mudfarmer]

Glad to hear the truck is back!

Those heated seats and steering wheels etc, well it's been a long time since I had a rig that the heater didn't work and that is about the only reason it would make sense to me. Wife is cold all of the time, she'd probably like it  ;D

We had a Nissan rental car and I could not figure out how to turn all the junk off- we came very close to getting rear-ended on the interstate because someone almost missed their exit and braked quick, car decided to panic stop on the highway on its own. Uneventful for most of the rest of the trip downstate except it kept messing with my lane position.

On the way home it was dark and the headlights would dim themselves. That was the dumbest part, they would dim if they saw their own reflection in a road sign. They would dim for no particular reason whatsoever. They would GO BACK ON BRIGHT to blind oncoming drivers. We ended up getting followed the last 20mi home by a state policeman that turned around, I'm assuming because they thought I was all liquored up, weaving around in the road and flashing my brights every 500ft!

Once the "self driving" cars hit the road in bulk I will never leave the woods again