Okay, so car new shows up. Dealership had it up-fitted for flat towing. So yay! Car looks great! Awesome stance with the slightly larger more aggressive tires and taller stance due to the upgraded suspension. The front end looks awesome with the tow gear in (like it belongs in). Everything looks like it belongs there! To say we are happy with it (well that remains to be seen) …

See, getting it back to the campground, that was the easy part. As the kids say, “everything went to hell after that.” Okay, I don’t know who the kids are, if they say that, but I say that! Kids, everything went to hell in a hand basket in less than 24 hours. I offer you exhibit B…

So here we go… we have not had the car more than 18 hours, and it was getting towed to the closest dealership. We broke down in literally the busiest intersection in Marion, at LUNCH! We just went out to get the mail and lunch. We were so close to the Subway, we could smell it! We were starving and then this! End result, a quick tow 4.5 miles to the dealer, dead battery. 4 hours later, swapped battery, we are back on our way. Seriously, went out for lunch got home for dinner? It’s like the one week trip we went on that hasn’t ended… geeesh!

Okay, so boom, we are back in the saddle again. Car running, go to dinner, make friends at the bar (future discussion), back to the campground. Saturday comes, we are loving having our own car again and now it’s time for groceries. Get in the car, drive about a mile and then it happens! EVERYTHING goes wrong. Car start emergency braking, all of the safety systems turn off. Dash starts blinking off and on. In the best nerd fashion I can offer an explanation for; the car literally (kernel) panicked and crashed. Clearly this is not how it should work out.

Two restarts later, the car stabilized (in nerd speak, we rebooted the damn thing until it complied). Back to the campground. A few phone calls and texts with folks asking what the hell, we pull the battery terminals and cross our fingers.

Okay, so now it is near dark and I start the car back up. First, it wasn’t panicking anymore, so score! But now every system was dead. No power seats, no radio, no safety systems, no anything. Just a motor that sounds like it is barely able to run. Yes kids, the car reverted to shipping mode not back to its last known state, a product that has been sold and activated. You confused by that statement? I was too, and it took a wee bit of explanation. So apparently to not kill batteries (uh huh, see where that went?), manufacturers ship cars in what they call “shipping mode.” In this state none of the parasitic draw systems are active, nor can you take said vehicle and do things like joyride (or drive) in them. Apparently the Charger Hellcat comes in this mode and it is so shut down, they can only make it on the lower level of the auto carrier on their own!? Now that explanation might be a bit exaggerated, but I think we all get the point. It’s not good state to be in!

Well here we are again, facing the “what the hell do we do” question. Now we could pack up the RV and tow the damn thing to the dealer. Or, we could just use the free “roadside assistance” come Monday when everything is open again (the dealer specifically). Well after some calls with the selling dealership and the closest dealership we had a plan. Commence operation get our f-n car fixed. Roadside ticket submitted and … no boom. I’ll spare you the read if you got this far. Roadside never, ever, ever showed up and they closed my ticket without doing anything.

Okay so where was I, oh Austin! So I likely didn’t mention we became quick acquaintances with the tow driver, Austin. It took me about 20 seconds of being in the rig with him to realize he owns that rollback we are riding in. Super cool kid, loves helping folks, loves his truck! Spoiler, he just bought a campground with 200 acres! Looking forward to seeing that! Back to the story, can’t blame him (Austin) at all, great truck saving our asses! So I call T&D and 3 minutes later, Austin is in the campground. As luck turns out, he actually recognized the car, which was easy enough, but he recognized Walter! Find out a bit later he was our neighbor over the fist weekend we were here, this time! Not just our neighbor, he was parked in his RV right in front of us! WHOA! Small world kids!

Anyway, I have gone down a rabbit hole… So Austin tows our car, for the second time in 5 days….

And that is where we are, back to not our own car. Back to feeling like 2022 can just suck it. While we have a brand new, Compass (Red) sitting in front of our RV and it’s ours to use until our car comes back… but then, that in itself is a problem. Actually if I may, I really like this car because a) it is small and yet has plenty of room and b) it’s actually here vs our car that is NOT here.

Today, the dealership here calls. So we found the problem…

Well, lets see if they did! Until the next time, be safe out there!