News

Okay, the Foose needs new tires. Why? Because the only way to check tire pressure is to either jack the car up, or totally remove the wheels, every time you want to check the tires. The mechanic at the dealership said he’d never seen anything like it. Never good to stump your mechanic. It’s sort of like stumping your doctor, just not a good idea. So, Charles is going to help us buy new tires that don’t require a mechanic every time we need to check tire pressure, which you should do once a week. And yes, Charles has explained that this means we will have to recalibrate our speedometer. He, and another of my gearhead friends, have even explained why this has to be done, but I don’t honestly understand it yet. (Okay, we may have to recalibrate, it depends on the tires we get. I just checked with Charles before I put this up, and he said, it depends. By the by, Charles knows cars, any mistakes in car talk on the blog is my mistake and mine alone. It’s me trying to understand things that I don’t understand.)
Charles says that the tires on the Foose right now are what they’d put on show cars. Cars that you put on a trailer and tow to car shows, because they are too beautiful to risk on the road. At the shows, you might dismantle the entire car to make sure there’s no dust anywhere. If we were doing that then taking off the tires to check pressure would be no big deal. But, the Foose is supposed to be a driving car, an every day car. I’m not entirely certain that the designer, Chip Foose, meant the car to be that. Certainly, the tires weren’t meant for anyone that has as little mechanical ability as I do.
So, the new car, my mechanical baby, is going to need new tires. I’ve had the car, what, less than a week? Again, I am wondering what was I thinking? I could have gotten a regular GT Mustang. I could have gotten an automatic in that. I’d already be driving it, on my own, with no fear of stop signs. If I wanted a nifty paint job I could have found a professional to paint the car for me, and I could have had anything I wanted as my design. The Foose is still beautiful, sitting in my garage, but I’m having progressively mixed feelings about it. I am, at heart, an intensely practical person. The Foose sits there like a reminder that I failed my saving throw on this one, and let pretty over come my common sense.
Okay, I have to add one last bit. I’d talked myself into feeling pretty foolish about the new car, but . . .I just walked through the corridor with it’s half wall that lets us walk through the garage without the dogs spilling out into it. The sunlight was hitting the hood of the Foose. I noticed that the black and crimson did not gleam as it once did. I looked closer and found dust on my car. I thought, oh, you need a bath.
I have never, ever, thought that a car being dusty required a bath for it. I’ve cleaned them for road salt, actual dirt, mud, or even a heavy coat of pollen from the local trees, but dust . . . Dust is what happens to everything, it’s natural, normal, but I’m going to give the car a bath, because that gleam of paint has dulled. Dear God, maybe I will eventually be one of those people that dismantles my car so it will be clean. I don’t think so, but then, I never thought I’d be bothered by the first hint of dust on the new paint job. I’ll even admit, that what I actual thought when I saw the dust, was, “Oh, poor baby, you need a bath.” It’s just a car, but . . . we’ll get new tires, and today we’ll try and get it cleaned. With one caveat, it’s supposed to do freezing rain and sleet here in early afternoon. If we can’t get the car bathed before the bad weather hits, we’ll keep the Foose in the garage and out of the weather. Again, I try to tell myself it’s just a car. Cars are supposed to go out in the weather, right? But not my new baby, not yet. Oh, dear.