Review: 2013 Ford Taurus SEL

Large companies are usually not the best examples of how to do business – despite all logic.

For decades, Ford Motor Co. struggled to understand the practical definition of teamwork. There were teams of chassis engineers, suspension engineers, interior designers, exterior designers, and so forth, working on the same car separately from one another. The teams never talked to each other, delegating middlemen called “product planners” to do this for them.

The outcome of all this was an automobile designed in chunks collected by carrier pigeons.

Time of the Gremlins

(Good company.)

I've sent my Fića to get its wiring fixed!

Last week, I arranged with the same mechanic from before to wire the Fića to an eight-fuse-box. The plan is to fix the electrics problem once and for all (and install the new handbrake cable while we're at it).

As you'd expect, driving the car to the shop is not possible, hence it had to get towed. Much to my delight, the Fića got there in a big, enclosed car trailer. But that wasn't the extent of the nice surprises...

The little Saturn that couldn't

There's no such thing as a bad experience. Every experience teaches you something good – the difference being in how that teaching is executed.

You will take away something positive and useful from everything that happens to you, no matter how much difficulty it's tied to. Take for instance the onerous situation that is my Fića, post-bad-restoration.

At the end of all this, I'll basically know how to put one together blindfolded.

Nevertheless, certain "good experiences" inevitably leave their mark on you, and you seem to remember more than you learn. In that spirit, here is my automotive horror story.

Definitive diagnosis

(Making sense of the mess.)

Let's see if I can't fix the Fića's wiring myself...

I had a theory that the car was wired for an eight-fuse-box, but that said wires were forced into a six-fuse-box.

The time came to put this theory to the test.

Review: 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee

The recent history of Detroit is a fascinating one.

The city is known for its strong tie with the US automobile industry, and for good reason. It all began in 1899, when Henry Ford’s first factory appeared in then-greater Detroit. By the 1920's, the US automotive industry dominated the whole city.

And so, Detroit became labor-hungry – an influx of middle-class workers, largely European immigrants, multiplied the population by six by the time said factory was 30 years old.

The drawing board, again

(The only way to sort out the mess.)

When the universe forces you to wait – be it for a car part or for the expiry of a penal sentence – you have time to think. For the simple reason that you can't possibly do anything to make the end goal arrive any faster, you have the (ironic) luxury of thinking about alternatives, and working the possibilities that they bring into your current dilemma. Perhaps there's something else out there – an undiscovered alternative solution – that can bring results when the current strategy seems to be doing anything but.

In the interim of waiting to find a six-fuse-box, I contemplated the option of converting my Fića to an eight-fuse-box instead. Which could be complicated – or not...