Ten Thousand Miles
At 290,000 miles tragedy struck Mr. Egan’s Volvo. You might imagine that this car, which older than my assistant, had finally given up. After all, due to the mastermind stratagem of planned obsolesce, most cars these days do not live much past 150,000; at which time they are either crushed into cubes for some reason , or placed on cement blocks in front of homes in Northern Maine. But no. The tragedy was a fate perhaps worse than death itself. At 290,000 miles, the odometer stopped working.
Comedian Larry Miller does a joke about how we fervently resist our age between 22 and 99. Perpetually fighting the years until at 100 a funny thing happens, and we revert to childhood attitude and our age becomes a badge of honor again. The joke ends with the imitation of an old man remarking that he “was 103 and a half”. This is analogous to what happens to a car around the 175K mark. We slowly watch the odometer and announce the mileage with pride to anyone showing even a mild interest in our car.
I had a 1994 Jeep that lived to be 225,000. At around 210K it developed this mildly annoying habit of turning itself off with no real warning, or even a discernable reason for that matter. I’d be driving down the road, and all of a sudden the engine would just stop. Fortunately the steering wheel did not lock up, so I’d pull it over to the side of the road, wait a few minutes, then start it back up again. Kind of like it was taking a nap. This was not as much of a problem as it might sound like. As long as I was not in a rush, which is pretty much always, I could wait it out. The only real injury was to my pride on the days where this would happen on my way to work. Inevitably, I’d be sitting on the side of the road, patiently waiting for the Jeep to wake up when I’d get passed by one of my coworkers. After a few episodes, they stopped calling to see if I was OK, but I never got a break from having to answer the questions about why I continued to tolerate such treatment from the Jeep.
When the Jeep hit 200,000 I actually pulled over and took a picture. I’m told that this is not uncommon. I was at the Charlton Rest Area on the Mass Pike, but you’ll have to take my word for it since this was before the ubiquity of the digital camera and I was using film and the pictures did not come out. From that moment on, my Jeep was magically transformed (in my eyes if in no one else’s) from a crappy old car, to an impressive feat of maintenance and love. I gladly shared the exact mileage on my Jeep with anyone who was interested, and maybe even a few people who were not so interested, if you can imagine such a person…
Eventually I had to reckon with the state of Massachusetts and admit that it would not pass its annual inspection in its current condition. A quick visit to my mechanic helped me to understand that the expense of a new puppy made more sense than getting an operation that may or may not prolong the life of the old dog, no matter how much I loved the hound. I still miss my Jeep every time it snows.
So, given the mess that appears at 225K miles, you can see what an accomplishment reaching 290K was for Mr. Egan. As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, cars were not designed to reach that level. Over the years, Mr. Egan, a good New Englander, has done most of the simpler work on his own. He regularly changes his oil and keeps the fuel lines and air filters clean. He’s probably changed the breaks four or five times in that car. Exhaust systems have been torn down and put back. The engine has been rebuilt. Clutches have worn out and been replaced. It’s seen any number of technological advances in modern tire evolution.
When you look at the Volvo, you are immediately struck by the fact that the hood is a different color than the rest of the car. This was not a slick 1980’s two-tone design feature. Nor was it some precursor to today’s youth trend of radical customization. Rather, like all other repairs done on a car of that age, it was born out of necessity. Though he is a close friend, I’m not sure what the circumstances surrounding the need for a hood replacement were. How does a hood break? I don’t know. We’ve never discussed it. I imagine he’ll tell me after reading this. At which time I’ll post an update. Point being, it’s had a lot of traditional, and nontraditional work put into it over the years to reach 290K.
So, although the odometer theoretically goes up to 999,999; we now know it was never really designed to go much past 250,000. I’m guessing that the principal at work here is not as sinister as planned obsolescence, but something more practical. Why make an odometer that will run way past the life of the car, right? That would just be wasteful.
But for those of us who do manage to cheat car-death even at the expense of contemporary style, advanced safety, and a new metric I call “hood matching”, the measurement of those miles past the 250K mark are critical. After all, without the high mileage, an old car is just an old car. The high mileage acts to impress your traveling companions in much the same the heated seats in a new Lexus would. In many respects those two things are equal.
Aside from the adoration one receives from normal folk who seldom run a car past 90K, there is great sense of self satisfaction one gets in rolling an odometer to the next echelon. It would take a person with a level of pragmatism and humility greater than the Dalai Lama himself to ignore a broken odometer. How could you deny the thrill of seeing an odometer move from 299,999 to 300,000? Not one tenth of one percent of the population takes a car to this stage. It is truly a rare accomplishment. If you doubt this statistic, do some research and send me the actual figure because I made this one up- but it sounds right, doesn’t it?
Every day that Mr. Egan gets into his car, he does so knowing that he’ll be missing valuable ticks on his odometer. It must be pure torture to get in the car and drive the 25 miles to Portsmouth, then home to Dover, knowing he could have been 50 miles closer to the magical 299,999 moment. It’s enough to make Mahatma Gandhi put his fist through a wall. There’s no question that this must be fixed, and fast.
Mr. Egan, undaunted by this new development, has found an internet company that specializes in distributing replacement plastic odometer gears out of a warehouse in Kentucky. Christ I love the internet. He should be back and measuring his journey within a fortnight.