I've put off writing about my third car for almost a week now. It's just too painful. What can you say about a car that embodied both the good and evil of the automotive realm?

After the Achieva I decided to step away from the realm of GM. 36,000 miles of pounding on the dashboard of the Achieva to stop the radio from rattling around the dashboard had made me hesitant to go for a third GM car. I therefore looked overseas, to the land of food products ending with "itznel".

A volkswagen. The people's car. Affordable luxury. And it was a great car in a lot of ways... it handled like it was glued to the road, it accelerated like a bat out of hell, and you felt connected to the road when you drove it.

But then... after 3 and a half years I went through 1 set of coil packs, 3 window regulators, 2 airflow sensors, 1 temperature sensor, and 1 brakelight sensor.

The brakelight sensor was the best, because I had no idea that it had failed, and drove for 2 weeks with no brake lights. I just assumed all of the middle fingers that I was getting on the parkway were a sign that civilization in NJ was about to collapse. Now I realize that people were trying to inform me, in the only way possible at 75mph, that I was remiss in vehicle maintainence.

Thanks NJ!