white noise

So I’ve had the new car, the Lincoln MKX, for a little over a month now and, yup, I’m happy with it.

The shopping process itself though was long and disappointing, though. Disappointing in seeing just how uninspired the auto industry is, at least in the SUV segment. Say what you will about the Aztek, at least it had some awesome features that were outside the box of what everyone else was doing. Today’s SUVs are all minimally sporty and have a homogenized level of utility. They really are fitting as the preferred transportation of suburbia because they perfectly mirror the comfortable, but completely unremarkable houses lining our neighborhoods. There are small ones and larger ones, basic ones and plusher ones, but they don’t really differ much. When I finally made a spreadsheet of around 17 different options, staring at all the similarities in their specs and features was daunting. Staring at their styling was also not helpful (oh, I see, this one has a little different slant to the window there…)

The test drives were probably the best part of the process, but there, too, there wasn’t much differentiation. They all had a great ride and nice bells and whistles. But occasionally there was something off enough to knock it down a peg. Eventually deciding to nix cars with three rows of seats and forego the possibility of hauling 4×8 sheets of material helped narrow things down considerably. After a few months it was clear there’d be no obvious winner standing apart from the rest, so it pretty much came down to choosing something with the best price to feature ratio. The certified pre-owned MKX certainly fit that bill. Anyway as much for my reference as anything, here’s how the new set of wheels stack up to the old.

I was amused how you can barely even tell there’s an engine in here. Everything is encased to reduce the noise. I

A month ago I said farewell to our faithful Aztek friend. After twelve years of trusted service it was finally time to move on. I took more than enough ribbing over owning that car. Yes, it had a quirky shape (or just downright ugly by most accounts). Fine, it didn’t have stellar power. Sure, it had a knack for catching the slightest breeze and turning it into a lane veering gust. And yes, maybe it marked the beginning of the end for one of America’s proudest auto brands. But in practice it was extremely useful, innovative, and trouble-free. It had cavernous cargo room, a great sound system, an awesome turning radius, technology that’s still hard to find (in the heads up display), and of course, A FREAKING TENT.

But eventually the maintenance items were starting to pile up (a nonfunctional fuel gauge, a couple badly worn bearings, a couple fan settings that didn’t work, etc), and the final motivation was when the air conditioning gave up as the heat of the summer approached. Knowing the time was coming, I spent months looking for a replacement, and eventually choose a low miles, certified 2011 Lincoln MKX to be the successor.

The Aztek was the first car I moved on from that wasn’t completely totaled when we parted ways (either by fire, or rollover, or deer). And for that it deserves a special tribute: