Two Infinitis & Beyond

Wow, I know what you are thinking. Why did you get rid of the Ascender? Here is the deal. In July, we were sideswiped in the Speedway here in Richmond by a lady eating a hotdog with a hearing aid. Now I know that sounds like the hearing aid was for the hot dog and let me just say that it probably would have done the hot dog more good. During the police interview at the scene, I told the officer that I slammed on the brakes, stopped the vehicle, and simultaneously sounded the horn. She responded by saying, "I didn't hear your horn, dear, I have a hearing aid." Was it a faulty hearing aid? Was it a bad battery? Was it intense focus on a hot dog? Either way, $1600 in damage later we were getting the car repaired.

Now that little story is just to give you an idea of the kind of luck we had been having with the Isuzu Ascender. I added the Isuzu part of the name because it gains relevance at this point. Around the same time as we were the target of the hot dog ladie's Chevy Lumina, we had noticed a "hiccup" in the engine. We were immediately concerned because several times the vehicle came close to stalling and it got worse. Ok, no big deal, right? We have had the vehicle just a little over a year and with 18K....can you say factory warranty? We'll just call the local dealership and get an appointment...or so we thought.

Unfortunately, the Isuzu dealership in Lexington closed down. Bummer. Well the Ascender is technically a GMC Envoy XL, we'll take it to the local GM dealership. No dice! They wouldn't touch it because it is an ISUZU. If they did anything, it would void the factory warranty. Plan C was the ISUZU dealership in Louisville. If you are not familiar with Kentucky geography, Louisville is about 70 miles from Lexington and 90 miles from Richmond. The only other ISUZU dealers "close" to us are in Cincinnati, OH and Knoxville, TN...not really an option. It seemed that Louisville was the best choice or at least the lesser of a bunch of evils. So off to the dealer we go.

The next series of events were not the nail in the Ascender's coffin, but they were the nail before that one. Briefly, the service department was backed up, Tiffy was without a car for about 2 weeks (12 days), a "special" part had to be ordered from FRANCE, a special tool had to be ordered to put on the special part, they couldn't give us a loner, they finally borrowed the special tool from a GMC!!!!!!! dealership, they "fixed" the car.....and finally we were able to drive the 90 miles one way to pick it up...(insert annoyed grunt here!)

Now, you would think that the issue was solved...you'd be mistaken. Let me set the scene...the temperature was 103 degrees F, Sam has a 101 degrees F fever, Tiffany in the Ascender with Sam is exiting I-75 coming home, the car has performed well for two days, then it stalls. It shuts down completely on the off ramp!!! Scared, upset, ANGRY are all words to describe Mrs. Dutton. She managed to get it started again and make it home....with it exhibiting the same symptoms as before for part of the time.

Our options were another two week trip to Louisville for the Ascender while we were down to one car or obtain some peace-of-mind by getting a new vehicle. We opted (after much soul-searching and by soul-searching I mean dealing with the depression over the money we would lose) for the new vehicle. But which new vehicle?

I am notorious for OVERresearching cars before we buy. I like to spend at least 6 months looking at every aspect of a possible auto purchase. We had about a week to do so. We went with what we new after some frantic looking at a short list of vehicles. We have had a great experience with my Gs (first the coupe and now the sedan) and the service can not be beaten. I mean I get a loner for an oil change if I need it. Infiniti in our opinion is just a cut above the rest. Tiffany wanted an SUV to replace the Ascender...enter the Infiniti FX.

Of course, this does sort of make us those weird people with two cars from the same company. But beside being a walking...or driving advertisement for Infiniti, we are more than pleased.