snowgoose

So you know I bought my new baby a few months ago? My gorgeous little Yaris which has been the most amazing reliable and awesome car I’ve ever owned. Well, even awesome cars need services and my 1st one came up today.

I emailed Halfway Toyota in Fourways on Wednesday to find out if they could service it today – they emailed back within 5 minutes to confirm the service and then SMSed me yesterday to remind me and to give me their details in case I needed to contact them.

I drove in 15 minutes early this morning and a hot Scottish guy named Dave met me at my car, explained what would happen with it and took my keys. I was then ushered to a swanky lounge with yummy capuccinos to wait for my lift to the office. It turns out I didn’t need the lift as Mary was on her way to get me, they were totally cool with the fact that I asked for the lift, cancelled it, asked for it again and cancelled it again. (long story)

I was in a presentation the whole day and they called me spot on as the presentation ended (this could just be luck but I’m attributing it to mental telepathy, mmmkay?). Hot Scottish Dave and the awesome Megan from their service department informed me that my baby was all serviced and clean and that a driver was being dispatched to collect me.

My car is running perfectly – it’s clean and it smells great – and it was all totally free of charge! (this is the first time I’ve had a service plan on a car so forgive my excitement)They are even arranging to get a part that some twat stole off my car for me.

In a world where crappy service has be come the norm, this kind of personal attention is inspiring. Every single person I encountered there was friendly and helpful – on a Friday afternoon when they have license to be a bit grumpy, I would be helluva grumpy! The thing that really makes me smile is that I drive a Yaris, not a big fancy Lexus, not a Prado. If they treat me like this now, I can’t wait to buy a Lexus one day – can you imagine what they would do then?!?

I will take my car there for every single service – even if I move to Siberia!

Thank you Dave, Megan, Simon the Driver and all the other people at Halfway Toyota in Fourways – you made my Friday.

So after 4 years of loyal service, I traded my Bean in last weekend. My bean, in case you’re wondering, was my Corsa Lite 1.4i. The numberplate was SJB which we christened Snowgoose’s Jelly Bean. I also called her The Bubble – and I loved her. Well, I did until recently.

I got my bean in 2005, she was 4 years old at the time, with 24 000km on her. I had sold my 1st car (The Beast, my 1987 Nissan Exa) to get the deposit together and The Bean was the first thing I had ever financed – the first thing I had ever spent over R9000 on! She was very basic – no central locking, no aircon, no power steering – heck – not even a rev counter! But, I loved her. I loved that car fiercely until April this year when some <insert the most obscene word you can think of here> decided not to have brake lights and slam on brakes on the highway – meaning my Bean went straight into the towbar of his ugly orange double cab – crunch! I was pretty frikken upset, you may remember the tweets.

Anyway – so The Bean has not been the same since then, she rattled and pulled in funny directions. This made me decide I needed a trade-up. I had a limited budget so it looked to me like the Toyota Yaris was the best bet. And after only 3 days of searching I found the perfect one: White (I like white cars -OKAY??), top of the range, low mileage (26 000km) and newish (2008 model).

And so on Saturday morning I found myself taking my last drive in the bean, speeding (as I usually do) and singing along to “I love you, always forever” with the radio at top volume. I met my new baby (and the massive instalment that comes with her) and took her home. She has all the bells and whistles and I haven’t stopped playing with them ever since. I’m even getting a personalised numberplate (yes, I KNOW it’s kitsch, I don’t care). Can you guess what it is? … No prizes for getting it: SNWGOOS GP.

So look out for me on JHB roads – most likely driving recklessly, over the speed limit, maybe even tweeting, in my gorgeous new car.

I feel so grown up.