So the automotive difficulties I mentioned in the last post? As it turns out, the actual drivetrain and electrical systems of the car are pretty much fine. The issue is with the central computer… specifically, the part of the central computer that controls alerts and other notifications. It’s pretty much gone quietly crazy, which is why it’s been blithely announcing problems with the main battery when the car is, in fact, running fine.
This serves as a reminder that what you find depends on how you look. If you come up with (say) a system for ranking hockey players in a league, then you will determine better
and worse
players regardless of whether there is an actual difference in quality. And if your instruments are telling you that something’s wrong, then probably something is wrong, be it the thing in question or the instruments that are informing you.
Anyhow, so I decided that I didn’t want to risk driving the car down to Kentucky on the off-off-chance that somewhere along the way an actual problem with the hybrid system cropped up (and that I wouldn’t be able to distinguish from an imaginary problem until the car was in fact on fire by the side of the highway). I therefore went and rented a car, a Chevy Aveo that I’ve conceived of many reasons to hate in my brief acquaintance with it.