I took the insight for a service at a local independent garage who are very nice. Unfortunately, it turns out their base service price is about twice that of the Honda dealer, which isn’t that much of a problem on a service, but makes me a bit wary of using them for other things on the Insight. That said, they are very nice, and unlike Honda they were happy to install the fumoto oil valve.
They also were happy to install the underbody panel…but they forgot. Which is irritating, mainly because it would have done sod-all to the service cost, but also because when I realized they’d not installed it I thought “oh well, I’ll do it when I get home, it’s a nice sunny day…”, which would have been fine except for the tiny fact that it turns out the insight can’t go up the ramps I’ve got.
Either of the pairs of them.
Because my ramps are designed for 1960/1970s European cars, which have nice high front bumpers, they have a fairly vicious slope on them. It turns out that you can’t even get them under the bumper on the insight.
Which leaves me unable to come up with a way of attaching the bloody thing other than taking it back to them (the nice, but not cheap, independent garage, because Honda won’t fit aftermarket parts), or buying a set of ramps specially for the insight. Although I think I might be able to get away with buying a chunk of timber to raise the car up an 5cm or so, before it hits the ramps. This is, of course, exactly the sort of thing I want (and don’t have) a garage for. I’m pretty certain I don’t have a workbench anymore, either, so cutting the timber has to be done by whichever shop I get it from. Which means planning ahead, and designing it without the thing I’m building in front of me. Something I’m notoriously terrible at, when it comes to quickie jobs like this one.
On the plus side, while they were expensive it’s much nicer spending the time kicking around town rather than hanging out in the Honda dealer (which is in the middle of the ‘auto-mall’). More expensive, but nicer. I had a nice tea in Burial Grounds, where my allergies decided to escalate to their usual ridiculous insanity – upsetting as I’d forgotten tissues (mainly because they’d been better for a few days). Then I spent an inordinate amount of time in Rainy Day, partly because my ex-students gave me a gift voucher (with which I bought both the Marika Hackman album, I’m Not Your Man (sadly not the Loser edition with its pretty coloured vinyl) and a used Bix Beiderbeck album).
Their plan worked, though. Rainy Day’s that is; I don’t think the students were in on this.
While I was in Rainy Day the woman running the shop put on a fantastic compilation of 1960’s Asian ‘garage girl groups’*. It’s part of a re-issue of a 1980’s series of compilation albums of 1960’s ‘garage girl groups’*. This has a dreadfully ‘of its time’ title (by which I mean it’s racist), so I won’t grace the page with the title. However, it’s an awesome compilation, and being a re-issue I’m willing to sort of let the title (and the title art on on the album) slide. Instead I’ll just share that it’s Volume 9 in the “Girls in the Garage” series.
Anyhow, having concluded that I’d broadly spent enough money on toys I meandered to the New Moon Café for lunch, then out to find a shady spot to finish reading Nasty Women. Which was fascinating, and interesting, and depressing, and uplifting. It makes me want to write, which I really should try and do, given that I’ve got about 1/3rd to 1/2 of a book sat unfinished.
*I have issues with this term, although I <em>suppose</em> I could equate it to boy-bands? Any moment when grown women are referred to as “girls” I find wrong.
