The way my wife sees cars and the way I see cars couldn’t possibly be more different. She sees them largely as appliances that help you get around, whereas I see cars almost like pets — character-filled machines with soul, and things that should be cherished. Neither of us is wrong, and we respect one another’s views, but I have to say: Sometimes I wish I could treat my cars like she treats hers.
My wife, Elise (Not Her Real Name), does not abuse or mistreat her car by normal-people’s metrics. She just uses it. Hers is a 2017 Lexus RX350, a vehicle that a few years ago I would have told you is a soulless beige appliance with zero soul — just a snoozefest of automotive boredom. But I’ve since changed my mind.
I’m not saying her Lexus is an exciting car, but it actually does have some soul, and in fact, you can find soul in almost any car. This Lexus’ soul comes from the fact that it’s just so good at fulfilling its intended purpose. This thing is meant to be a reliable, comfortable, practical suburban commuter, and as I said in my review titled “Driving My Girlfriend’s Lexus RX 350 Made Me Realize That The Most Boring Car On Earth Is Also Excellent,” I think it’s a truly excellent crossover SUV. Arguably one of the best ever made. And that alone means it’s more than just an appliance.
From that review:
My girlfriend sometimes gets upset when people call her car boring. It seems like an insult to a car that she thinks is so great. Are people saying she’s wrong?
No. She’s absolutely right. It’s an excellent car, and Lexus should be commended for building something that perfectly aligns with what she and so many other consumers are looking for: The ultimate no-bullshit luxury SUV. That’s what the Lexus RX350 is. You buy it, you’re comfortable, you’re confident, you’re safe, you rarely have to worry about significant mechanical issues, the dealership will give you a great service experience (my girlfriend actually enjoys going to the Lexus dealer, which says a lot about what Lexus is doing right), and the car just demonstrates its competence every time you’re behind the wheel. It fades into the background, and lets you live a life where cars are not at the forefront.
Anyway, this blog isn’t about how good the Lexus RX is, it’s about how my wife uses hers. You see, while my respect for the Lexus RX means I no longer see it as an appliance, my wife definitely uses it as one. And if I’m completely honest: I wish I could do the same with my daily-driven BMW i3S.
For example, one day she opened her car’s rear hatch in a parking garage, and the taillight hit one of the hanging pipes, leaving a chip:
“Oh, you damaged your light,” I told E(NHRN). She walked around, took a look. “Where?” she asked. I pointed out the damage. “What, just that little chip? That’s fine.” She’s right. It is fine. She went on with her day, happily and merrily and joyously. My day would have been ruined. She’s clearly doing it right, I’m doing it wrong.
Then one day she backed up into the vertical garage door track, leaving scrapes and a dent on her rear quarter panel. Look at this carnage:
“Woops!” she said as the horrifying screeches left lifelong imprints in my mind. She pulled the car from reverse into drive, repositioned the car, and backed out. We stopped to look. “Eh, it’s fine!” she said. And went on with her day.
I, meanwhile, have had nightmares about that horrible noise, and that destruction of a painted panel that cannot be unbolted from a car — the dreaded quarterpanel damage. It still haunts me; my wife doesn’t think about it. Ever.
Then there’s the door-opening situation. I’m not saying my wife is careless about opening her door, but when she has to get into and out of her car, if there’s a tight space between her door and a wall or pillar, she will rest the door on that wall or pillar. “I need the space!” she says, as that door taps the concrete, sending a solitary, involuntary tear down my face and ensuring a second therapist booking to follow up that garage door fiasco.
Speaking of garage door fiascos, one day while pulling her car out of our garage, I accidentally hit the wrong garage door button, sending the door BANGING down right onto the Lexus’ roof! As I was driving slowly, the metal bottom grabbed the paint and scraped it until the garage door could figure out what was going on and slide back up out of the way.
The bang and scratch left me alarmed. I peeked onto the roof, and though the scratches are hard to see in the light, they are there. My wife literally couldn’t care less. The scratches are on the roof, after all.
Then there’s the time an almost-90-year-old guy crashed into our rear bumper and our insurance company somehow blamed us. My wife was obviously not thrilled about State Farm not placing the blame on a man so out-of-it he didn’t even realize he’d gotten into a crash, but as for the damage? I wiped it off with a moist cloth, and though there are still some scratches visible, my wife thinks the car looks great.
I meanwhile, freak out over every single thing that happens to my BMW i3S, to the point where I spent thousands of dollars installing XPEL PPF just so that I can avoid paint chips and door edge scratches.
Seriously, I even wrote a whole article about a tiny scratch I got on my mirror from a lane-splitting motorcyclist:
Look at how ridiculous this is:
That scratch wiped off to look like this:
Why am I even mentioning a tiny bit of roughness left on that mirror?:
Every time my wife gets into my i3, she throws her keys onto my eucalyptus dashboard, and I cringe. “Careful with that!” I say. “Oh, sorry!” she replies, literally not knowing what the hell I’m on about. There’s a cubby on my dashboard; why can’t she just use it? Sometimes she brings a backpack with her in the passenger’s seat footwell; “careful not to push that bag against the lower dash, since the white leatherette will get marked,” I tell her. When she opens the door in parking garages and the edge touches a wall, I always get annoyed.
The result is that I don’t think she enjoys riding in my car (a car which, to be clear, isn’t exactly a rare sports car, it’s a small daily-driven city car). It’s not that she’s careless, it’s that she just doesn’t see things the way I see them. It’s a car. You use it to get you around. If a space is tight and the door has to touch a wall, so be it? If you get a scratch here and there, so be it. That’s part of owning a car.
I wish I could treat all my cars like she treats hers. Her Lexus looks good; it’s not a steaming pile at all. It has a few scuffs and scrapes here and there, but she’s not constantly worrying, and she can get the absolute most out of her machine without being in a bad mood all the time.
Why is it that for me to enjoy a car without stress it has to be an absolute steaming beater? Why can’t I just enjoy my cars, stress-free, well before they become rustbuckets that lower my neighborhood’s property values?
I’m doing it wrong, she’s doing it right.
My days (yes, days!) are ruined if I notice a new rock chip, or minor scratch, or god forbid door ding on my 20 year old 350z. I’m glad E(NHRN) can live in bliss even with scratches and dings- I know I couldn’t especially with a car that new and nice!
Coming up this week on “industry man discovers how normal people use their cars….”
lolol what’s with the huge job titles over your faces?
it is aesthetically unpleasant
No fucking kidding. One of Hardigree’s bright ideas.
It’s like a “Censored” bar covering something unsightly…
Sounds like you’ve started to attend therapy. We’re proud of you, David.
My wife has a 2022 RX L as well. Has to serve her plus primary kid duty and hauls around the dog in the 3rd row. Kid snack remnants everywhere, light curb rash on wheels, etching from bird crap left on the pain too long, mud on the rubber mats, empty cans in the cupholders, etc. Drives me batty to no end.
A few months ago, I had to let it go. I’ll still clean it occasionally and do minor paint correction, but otherwise there was a realization that car is meant to be used for the purpose it serves. The kids and wife stay safe and it’s been trouble free so far. I’m just thankful for that. And it will hold resale value as long as a bear doesn’t tear up the inside and it doesn’t have burn marks on the outside. It will never be a collector car, nor should it be. And I’m finally ok not treating it like I do my own car.
I don’t care about small scrapes and dings and dirt, but kids’ snack remnants are a bridge too far for me.
For me, it depends. I have five cars. Some of them I love like children, some are just cars. My beloved and irreplaceable (only ~500 ever imported) ’11 RWD, 6spd, BMW 3-series wagon? That I bought new Euro Delivery and barely has 50K on it? Gets treated with kid gloves. I’m careful where I park it. I am careful where and when I drive it. It’s never left out in the sun for long. It hasn’t seen snow in 13 years. It’s clean and waxed at all times. If you get to drive it, you are one of my most trusted fellow car people – my bestie, bless her heart, has been behind the wheel once in 14 years. Probably never again (she’s HARD on vehicles, zero mechanical sympathy). My BMW 1-series convertible is a half-step behind – I love it, but it’s fairly easily replaceable. So it gets very treated well too, but I lend it out occasionally and don’t really worry about where I put it or drive it.
My ’14 Mercedes wagon? Meh, it’s a car. I pretty much treat it like a rented mule. it gets stuffed full of crap, it gets hundreds of pounds on the roof rack, lumber and tile shoved inside it. It’s completely and easily replaceable, they are a dime a dozen by comparison. It’s nice, but not perfect. it goes through the automatic car wash once a week – I have never hand washed it or waxed it. I maintain it, and when a garbage can got blown into it and dented it I had it PDR’d, but there are some broken plastic bits inside that are never going to get replaced, and I don’t care that the wood trim has the usual w212 UV fade. It is what it is. Very different from the BMW convertible that lives next to it in FL where I replaced the 3rd brake light lens, side markers, and antenna due to UV damage last year just to keep up appearances. If it still works, it’s “fine” on the Benz. I would live with a chipped taillight on this car – and it has a little dent in the grill that is never getting fixed.
My Spitfire and Land Rover Disco are kind of in-between. I let all my friends borrow either one. My Spitfire has been on a LOT more dates than I have, and the Disco has been a tow beast for all sorts of things over the years. Both are cheap and cheerful, and while I have nearly 30 years of ownership of the Spitfire, it’s not THAT precious to me, and like the Mercedes, both the Brits are “genteelly scruffy” – especially the Rover – it wears battle scars with pride. I do have a compete new interior for the Spitfire – this summer’s project (though I said that last summer too). Been 25 years since the last interior re-do, so it’s time. Nicer stuff (leather seats!) and a color change this time too from black to biscuit. That should rekindle the love affair a bit, LOL.
I’m the same way. Cars have different care levels based on their usage, and who can drive what depends on who the potential borrower is.
“My wife literally couldn’t care less”
Thank you so much for the “n’t”, it’s made my day.
Holy crap, David. You sound exactly like me. I had a F-150, and I whacked the mirror exiting a parking garage at work. I was able to remove most of the marks, but it wasn’t good enough. I had to replace the thing. It wasn’t even a special vehicle – just a XLT. My wife doesn’t really care about these things, and a car is just a tool to get around.
Love it every time you post an article. It does bring to mind a few thoughts:
1. Perhaps label here car serene instead of boring?
2. There is a Japanese philosophy or Budist, I’m neither so forgive me, that nothing should be perfect so a scuff or a ding is to be desired not feared.
3. My guess is Elise NHRN has always purchased nice cars and driven them normally. However you my good man have only recently discovered the glorious experience of driving a decent vehicle and as such respect the privilege of driving a nice ride. I never heard you complain when your beaters got damaged so you can be respected for respecting your new privilege.
4. Neither one of you is right or wrong you are just at different stages of your car journey.
5. I think both of you are a good match and if you realize you can learn from each other instead of trying to convert each other your betrothal will grow and become even deeper.
6. One way to accomplish this is ask her to let you teach her the ABCs of car ownership. Not because you want to change her but because there will be times when she is in a situation where no one is around to help her. No cell phone service and she has a flat tire. An oil change not to do it but to learn if jiffy lube is screwing her.
7. Allow her to teach you what she thinks may benefit you not to change you but to be a more well rounded member of society.
8. To finish some Greek Philosophy Guy speculated that original humans had 4 arms 4 legs 2 heads etc but the God Zeus feared that man was likely to overthrow the Roman Gods so he separated them and condemned them to search for their other half instead of developing past the gods.
“However you my good man have only recently discovered the glorious experience of driving a decent vehicle…”
Yes. Well, except for press cars—but he didn’t own them. Owning is the difference.
#3 is an astute point.
I thought so too. I didn’t own a car for 35 years living in NYC, and the three I had before were bangers. So when I retired/moved and got exactly what I wanted – and brand new too – I became like David.
I am convinced my wife has 20/10 vision when it comes to scratches/dents/paint imperfections on all our cars, and normal vision on everything else. She’s the one who parks on the far edge of the lot no matter what she’s driving to avoid being door-dinged, I park as close as I can and don’t worry about it.
Half the time I can’t even see the supposed flaw she’s pointing out, but I’ll just nod along.
I try to keep cars in good shape, mostly in the interest of keeping them from rusting, but I can’t say I’m obsessed with it the way some are.
That is why it’s a good Idea to keep from dating Martha Stewart fans. I mean guys see like 9 colors and women see more than 9 shades of each color. TBH on a car that color sense may be reversed
So why, when I purposely park my nice car at far reaches of parking lot as your wife does, is there someone parked right next to me when I come back out? WTF??
Most people own cars to either have fun driving them or use them for a practical purpose. I don’t like getting damage on such an expensive item, but that’s what happens when you use stuff. Elise is getting use out of her Lexus. David is having a good time with his BMW. If those cars were confined to the garage forever, neither David nor Elise would be getting much out of their vehicles. There are smaller and cheaper things you can keep in perfect condition to admire.
Likewise, I have some nice camera gear. I could keep it swaddled and protected, but I’d never get to create any cool photos with it. I’d rather have some cool photos than have gear in perfect condition I never got to use for its designed purpose.
Things definitely change when your daily driver is pretty old. My car is 18 years old with 192,000 miles. When a teenager backed into me at a stop sign a few years ago and left a scuff on my bumper, I was fine with it. I told her “My car is old, it’s OK.” A friend noticed a scratch down the side of my car, probably from someone’s purse or bag brushing against it. My friend was horrified, I was nonplussed. Again my car is old, it’s gonna have scratches. If that scratch happened when my car was a few months old, I would’ve been pissed. Not that my car is all bashed up now. I get compliments from strangers impressed by its condition.
Just remember if you are a smart shopper you can get a good deal on a new appliance if it has a dent or a scratch. Is it really that much different? I mean I have a WD combo and I can’t figure out what any of the options do.
Proof that there are no boring cars:
QED
Almost all cars are appliances, and almost all cars can be viewed as having a “soul.” As mechanical devices used to reduce labor, they are appliances by definition. Soul is purely made up by the observer, so any car can have a soul as much as any other object or creature. People start to get sideways when they think “soul” is a real thing rather than something they are making up and can control.
My first car was an ’84 Chevette I bought in 1987 for $1200. By any practical measure, it was purely an appliance and nothing else. But if I were to stumble on a decent one for sale for cheap, I would certainly buy it. Same for the ’84 Scirroco, ’74 Olds 98, ’87 Subaru, ’87 BMW, and many other cars I have owned. The “soul” those cars have is based on nostalgia.
The Miata track car a friend and I built during lockdown has “soul” for us because our incompetence in building it causes it to act in strange ways that only make sense to us. That “soul” is based on a shared experience and the resulting inside jokes they cause.
But the “soul” is entirely in my head, and as long as it brings joy and doesn’t cause collateral damage, it can be great fun. As soon as it isn’t fun or has negative impacts on other parts of life, it needs to be jettisoned. Don’t let objects control your life.
Being worried about small scratches is another thing altogether. That is an OCD thing combined with refusing to acknowledge that appliances depreciate as they are used. Therapy might help that.
I try my best to make sure my wife sees me as a character-filled pet with soul, that should be cherished, and not just a large appliance that helps her get around.
The jury is still out.
I wish you the best of luck, but also want to inform you that Amber Turnsignals is Torch’s drag name
I thought it was Clamatha!
Can’t believe you rehashed that(need a magnifying glass to see) nothing burger nick on the i3 mirror plastic.
Hoonicus
9 months ago
From frozen tundra rust wrangler to enlarge to see little nick in plastic, where’s my fainting couch.
Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!
Also, do something with that garage door, so that can’t happen again.
So we’ve learned Elise is French
But we haven’t seen any evidence of protesting or cheesemongery
Oh, merde
Appliance cars are for use and use means accumulating minor damage. I’ve known people who obsessed over minor cosmetic issues, spending good money and time fixing them only to trade them in eventually to get less than 1/10th of their fastidious and time-eating maintenance cost back. On the flip side, is downright disregard, which I don’t understand on such an expensive purchase in good condition. Sure, it’s healthy to not let it bother one much to receive some small damage, but to not try to take care to avoid it, I don’t get—after all, that’s free. I’m somewhere in the middle. I’ll take care where I park and touch up a scratch to avoid rust and to look a little better, but who knows when I’ll get around to blending it in if I get interrupted before I can get to it. I undercoat every year and I’ll clean it when it looks filthy, but I don’t let what I can’t prevent get to me. If it looks good to ordinary oblivious people from 20 feet, I live with it. I also don’t buy expensive cars partly for this reason.
Huh. I wonder if this also arises when you only own one car instead of a fleet of cars. (And you own a fleet or cars.) You can grab a different car less pristine car when you have to do something that will be dirty or have the potential to scratch/dent/soil the car in hand. So your i3 is your super precious.
With only one car, you just have to, well, make do and accept the consequences. I have used my woefully “wrong” car hauling dirt, wood chips, rolls of sod, etc as required. I’ve carried plywood/drywall on the roof rack countless times. A ridiculous amount of 2x4x8’s have been carried in the trunk. Did it scuff up the car a bit? Did it make it dirtier than ideal? Yup. I then went on using the car. No big deal. Regular interior cleaning dealt with 95% of that easily.
This is not to say my cars look crappy by any measure. My for sale 2012 Ford Focus EV looks absolutely great compared to 95% of the cars the same age. But it does show battle “scars” from a well used life. Some nicks I can remember the silly thing I did and can actually smile since it reminds of all the projects it allowed me to complete.
So I look at a car as something to enjoy life with! For me the car has helped me do things like woodworking and home renovation work that I truly love doing. The car helped me do what I enjoy doing, and for me that is why I love my car. Some scratches along the way just add to the joy it provided.
Good stuff, David – a little introspection is a helpful thing.
I find myself (metaphorically and figuratively) between the two of you. I like the F-Pace very much and strive to keep it in above-average condition, but I also use it kind of like a truck. It’s carried lots of boxes and parts and even most of an entire motorcycle in the back. There is also a stout (900lb tongue weight) hitch receiver on it so I can transport a motorcycle on a receiver-mounted carrier.
In fact, the rear seats are folded down because there is a complete Harbor Freight 4’x8′ utility trailer, still in the boxes, in there… and has been since January. (Waiting for good weather + opportunity to assemble it.) The funny and ironic thing is that my wonderful better half, who 100% sees cars as appliances, is low-key appalled that I would tow a utility trailer with the Jaaag. 🙂
I do wish the odd small scratches weren’t there, but they don’t detract in a meaningful way from the overall enjoyment of the vehicle.
Tell her there’s a weirdo on Autopian towing a utility trailer with a GR86, the Jag is fine—after all, it has a published tow rating.
OK wow!
Then I would need to recap what an Autopian is, and describe what a GR86 is, and then lay out the juxtaposition and why it’s interesting…
But I appreciate the idea, if that helps.
Hm, yeah. Maybe just show a picture. Non car people seem to think it’s a lot fancier than it is and mine’s the Smurf blue, so it looks even more ridiculous towing.
😀
Towing with a Jag is baller.
See, that’s what I thought! 😀
To paraphrase Clarkson, “I’m just borrowing this trailer, because I have a Jaaaaaaaaaaagggggg”.
I have a tow hitch on my BMW 1-series convertible. Towed a U-Haul utility trailer 100 miles round trip this morning to go to the fancy plywood store. Top down in the FL sun. I got some looks, LOL. I should have taken a picture, it is a fairly amusing sight.
In theory, I would rather have a hitch on my Mercedes wagon. Trouble is, the one for that car costs a grand, and the chances that I still have that car in a few years are rather infinitely lower than my still having the BMW. So BMW it is for occasional light tow duty.
I had one of the HF folding trailers for a decade – they are pretty great! Debating buying another one (or upgrading to the Northern Tools aluminum version) once my new garage is done and I have a place to keep it. I don’t NEED one that often and renting from U-Haul is only $25 a day, but it’s definitely a bit of hassle to have to pick up and drop off a rental.
Yes, that makes sense. I plan to keep the F-Pace for a long time (fingers crossed) as well so I didn’t mind making the modifications.
My brother had a[n] HF folding trailer for quite a few years and liked it. In fact his experience made me much less reluctant to give it a shot. Your vote comes in after the fact but I appreciate it just the same. 🙂
Oddly enough, the first thing I haul with the trailer will probably be a piece of plywood to be installed on the trailer.
LOL – that was the same thing I first hauled with mine! I built removable sides for it too. Probably won’t bother with that this time.
The funny thing is probably 80% of cars from Fiat 500s to S-classes, and nearly every CUV have a trailer hitch on the other side of the pond. Even if you don’t see one, there is probably a hidden receiver hitch. Nobody has a friend with a pickup truck…
My Trabant had one!
Scratched the crap out of my mirror on my newish car. Bugs the heck out of me to the point of replacing it on my own dime, and also feel some relief that the first scratch is done…
I was ogling the Boss 302 parked next to me and backed my brand new car into a building (and I have a back-up camera) two weeks after I bought it.
I was incredibly stupid (in my defense I drove very little for 35 years in NYC), but I view the little dimple as my good luck dent.
While I must say that I DO have a “moderately priced” and what canyon-carving reviewers sometimes call “boring” and definitely “reliable” car (Corolla Cross Hybrid), everything else about this article hits. My wife’s aging CR-V has tons of damage she could care less about. That said, it’s been the Family Truckster for most of my kids’ lives, while mine is a newer single-person commuter, mostly. So, in the end, I’m lucky she thinks that way.
Respectfully, you’re both doing it wrong. You shouldn’t freak out when something happens, and she should be more careful. When unavoidable scrapes and things happen, it’s not the end of the world. It’s normal wear and tear. However, carelessly damaging a car isn’t necessary. They make the cubbies and such for a reason. Resting the car door on a pillar or wall damages the paint, which can be an expensive repair, and if it carries over to resting the door on the car next to you, that’s a problem because it damages someone else’s property.
In short, pull the stick out of your butt, but carelessness isn’t desirable either.
Yeah, that’s what I came to say. She’s blissfully ignorant, but also incredibly careless. He’s completely aware and compulsive about it. Neither are doing it right.
Spending thousands in paint protection film doesn’t make any sense at all when a good professional touch up job costs a few hundred.
Smacking up and devaluing a valuable asset just because you don’t care enough not to do that isn’t any better.
If it’s your daily driver, care for it, but don’t obsess over it.
I’m in this article and I don’t like it
You can be this way. It just requires a choice that’s anathema to you:
Buy a moderately-priced boring and reliable car that you don’t care about beyond its utility.
You care about the i3 and it’s expensive. And that’s the flaw. Damage by daily use is inevitable. Either you’re going to have to accept that, or have it be a garage queen.
If the vehicle was cheap and you cared, you’d be rehashing your Michigan adventures with questionable Jeeps. Sure, you were hard on them, but they were so cheap it didn’t matter.
If a vehicle is moderately priced, you don’t feel that you’re devoting a huge portion of your income to it – it’s mostly depreciated. If it’s so bland as to be a non-entity in your automotive mind, you won’t care about the bad things that happen to it with day-to-day use. As long as you buy something with decent life left in it (not a junk Accord, for instance), you can put lots of miles on, guilt-free when things do happen (and they will).
You’re in Southern California! You have a whole world of rust-free mundanity to choose from! Dozens of models of decently-built ‘Meh’ cars! Think of all the not-caring you could have with a mid-2010s Chevrolet Malibu or late 2000s/early 2010s Ford Fusion! And they’d just drive along for untold miles with basic maintenance.
Then you’d drive something interesting when you wanted to drive.
A “Rust-loving Jeep man…” freaks out when his mirror is scratched? You are no more rational than the rest of us.
This is quite the public apology, David. I hope she reads it and lets you in off the couch