QOTD: Summer Road Trip or Staycation?
It’s now been a full week since Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer. And with the pandemic seemingly receding — my state and city move to full-go reopening on Friday — people are anxious to move.
Yet it’s been a brutal year for many of us lucky enough to not be among the 600,000+ dead. Some of us lost jobs or income. Others still aren’t ready to boogie quite yet, either because the virus is still out there and/or because they haven’t yet been fully vaccinated. And just because the city and/or state you live in may be reopened, it doesn’t mean a certain vacation destination you’re interested in will be.
So, our QOTD on this June Monday is simple — are you itching to hit the road, and if so, will you scratch that itch? Or would you rather keep it closer to home, availing yourself of your backyard (and maybe pool) or local options like the nearest park? Will you mix it up — meaning no road trips, but excursions to your local museums/ballparks/beaches/whatever?
If you are driving somewhere, do you have your eyes on a hot summer car, either something you’d buy or a rental (perhaps one from a place that rents exotics)? Or are you dusting off your trusty old Miata/Mustang?
Oh, and what tunes are you jamming?
No need to dox yourself, but satisfy our curiosity below.
[Image: Soloviova Liudmyla/Shutterstock.com]
Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
More by Tim Healey
Comments
Join the conversation
Half of the comments in this thread is about traveling to India during pandemic. On the other hand it makes it easy to skip half of the thread and save time.
And your other car is a Lexus GS350? In the nine years since I bought mine, it has required annual oil changes, a battery, and a new cruise control switch.
Well. We have put in over 7700 miles driving around the country so far since mid April and we are currently 2000 miles from home so I’d say we are firmly in the travel camp...
I had a friend who for some reason, picked at the headliner in every vehicle he owned. Replacing them, and doing the job right, is/was an almost impossible task, from what I saw and later on, experienced for myself. First car I saw was a 70 Buick Regal GS. Nice car when he bought it, soon the headliner was hanging down, with duct tape on it as a bad choice of keeping it out of his face. Took it to the Buick dealer, and paid the body shop to replace it, and they totally messed it up. Puckers and folds, it was terrible. The dealer finally sent him to the other side of town to a trim shop, and they got it right. Until he picked at it again. Next one was a '75 Vega, as he went "economy" for couple of years. Same deal as the Regal. Awful job on it, and off to another trim shop for a do over. Then came his '78 Camaro. The only problem that car had that didn't come from his awful driving was the headliner was bad before he got it. And him picking at it made it fall down both in the front and rear. Somehow, the dealer did it perfectly. Same dealer that had done the Vega about 4 years earlier. And then the worst of all. He bought a '73 Challenger Rallye 340 in amazing shape in 1980, with only 12K miles on it. I did a tune up on it, and it ran very well. The only thing that wasn't OK on it was the front brakes were warped, so a brake place I knew did them. Well, soon he had the headliner torn up and the local dealer assured him "We know what we're doing!". As it seemed most Las Vegas dealers were back then, they lied. Between the ripples, the bunching, and the amazingly potent smell of contact cement, it was just a mess. The body shop manager seemed shocked when he complained about it. "I don't know what you want!". We hunted down the trim shop that did the old Regal and the dealership eventually said they would pay for it. I moved away after the Challenger was finally done right, but his headliner misadventures have continued ever since. So a friend borrowed my 2010 Challenger for a weekend "test drive". I got his older Grand Cherokee. So he comes over Monday morning and he says, "I had a little accident!". He got into the back seat when his wife was driving and he tore the headliner just in front of the back window with some sort of 3 ring binder ring snagging it. He said, "I'll pay for fixing it!", and I said, "You have no idea what a huge pain in the ass it might be to get it done right!". I took it to the dealership near work, not the one I bought it at, and that turned out to be a mistake. Terrible job, I don't see how it could have been much worse. I balked right away, and they agreed to let me take it to a nearby trim shop and let them have a try. They screwed it up too! I finally took it to the dealership I bought it at, and the body shop guy assured me "You will be happy, he does a great job on that stuff!". And he did. My only complaint was I had to drive my friend's Grand Cherokee another 2 weeks until the car was done. The dealership that got the headliner perfect was unable to get the replacement R/T stripe on the front quarter even remotely close to the other side when they repaired my car after a fender bender. They assured me that would make it right, and call me when their "stripe guy" was coming in. They didn't call, and when I finally asked about it, they said I waited too long. Screw 'em, they will never get any more business from me.