Tag Archive for: cars

The DMV

Yes, it’s time for a rant about the Department of Motor Vehicles and how inefficient the process of getting new plates for a car is. Come with me on a journey to the bureaucratic maze that is the DMV with a quick detour to the St. Charles County Collector’s Office.

As you may (or may not) know, I recently purchased a brand new 2008 Pontiac G6 GT. This is the first property I’ve owned, so I have not paid personal property taxes in the past. Last year’s personal property tax receipt is one thing I needed in order to get plates on my car. If you’ve not paid personal property taxes before because you’ve not had property, then you have to get a waiver saying you haven’t. On Saturday I go to the Collector’s office to get my waiver. Guess what? They aren’t opened on Saturday. In fact, they are only open 9-5 on Monday-Friday. Great to see that the government services I need are only open during the normal work day so if you need something from them, you have to take off work to get there. My wonderful tax dollars being put to great use (sarcasm).

Monday I decide to try again for my waiver. Luckily, I work at a school and get out at 3:15. I head down to get the waiver. I stand in line for about 10 minutes at the window I was told to go to. The lady looks up my information so I can get my waiver. I was thinking, wow, this isn’t bad. I’ll be out of here in no time. Wrong. The first window was just so I could get a sheet of paper printed saying I needed to have a waiver printed. This lady looked at my tax history and asked me several questions. Why she couldn’t just print the waiver I’ll never know. I head to the next section and pull a number. Number 63. They’re serving number 46. Great. I wait. And wait. And wait. Right now I’m thinking that there was about 15 people here. If they were on number 46, that means the majority of people come at the end of the day, so why do they only have two windows open at the end of the day? Typical government. Finally, after about 45 minutes, my number is called and I get the waiver printed. By this time, it’s too late to make it to the DMV by the time they close. That will be saved for Tuesday.

I go to the DMV on Tuesday. This was relatively painless. I had to wait, but not long. The only bump I ran into along the way is that she wasn’t going to give me new plates yet because my new insurance card with my new car on it says it starts in March. I needed proof of current insurance. Luckily, for some odd reason, I had a card from my Mazda in my glove box. Here’s the part that makes me wonder about the DMV’s efficiency. In order to get personalized plates, I have to fill out a form, mail it to Jefferson City, wait 8 weeks for a letter stating that my plates are in at the DMV, then go pick them up. This can, and should, be much more efficient. I should be able to go in, choose personalized plates if I want them, the DMV should be able to search the records to see if they are available, request those me printed for me, then either mail them to my house or notify me that they are ready to be picked up. I guess if they were efficient, they wouldn’t be the government, right? It’s 2008. It should not be this tedious to get license plates. How hard would it be to get all these forms and things computerized so that nothing needs to be mailed anywhere and it can all be done on the computer at the DMV? Not very hard.

XM Radio

I have to say one of my favorite features of my new car is XM satellite radio. I always wondered who would pay for radio. The quality is not that great, it’s radio so you hear the same stuff over and over, and there are way too many commercials. With my car I received three free months of XM’s service. Of course they give it to you free hoping they’ll hook you and have you purchase the service after the three months are up. Well, I’m hooked. XM takes all my preconceived notions about radio and throws them out the car window. The quality is fantastic, there is a great mixture of songs and stations, and very few commercials (the commercials I have heard are usually for other XM stations).

I love XM. There. I said it. The programming is perfect for me. I love old school hip hop and guess what, there is a station for that. I love liberal talk radio, and guess what, there’s Air America Radio. Now, St. Louis does have an AAR affiliate, but it’s not a dedicated affiliate, meaning they have other programming on the station as well, and the signal is very weak. It’s nice to be able to turn it on whenever I want and listen. I also love being able to listen to XM online. I listen to it quite a bit at home. It will be really nice when I travel. I’ll never have to search for a local station and hope they play good music. I have my 10 or so favorite stations on XM that I can listen to across the country. I’m definitely keeping the service after the free three months are up.

Smooth Operator

No, I’m not a smooth operator, but my car is. My new G6 is such a smooth ride. I enjoy driving it so much and am extremely happy with my purchase. I’ve not taken any pictures yet, but I found one online that is my exact color, chrome wheels, and spoiler. This is what my car looks like (click for larger image).

g6 small

Pontiac G6 GT

So, I have a new car. Last night we went out to look for a new car. The first place we went was Suntrup Buick, Pontiac and GMC. I found the car I saw on their website and had the salesman bring it around. I took it for a quick test drive and immediately fell in love. It had such a smooth ride and was very spacious. I love the features on the car as well. It has two-toned interior with wood accents, XM satellite radio, cd player, input for an mp3 player, remote unlock and trunk popper, remote start, power everything, On Star. It’s a v6 so it has plenty of power. I’m really enjoying the ride. I can’t wait to drive it some more. Hopefully I’ll have some pictures up soon.

A New Car

I’m thinking about getting a new car soon, hopefully within the next couple weeks. I would really like to get a 6 cylinder car, as they have a much smoother ride. My very first car was a 6 cylinder Chevy Corsica. While it was an old car, it had a fairly smooth ride and had no problem accelerating. My current car is a Mazda Protege. It’s been a good car but it’s a much rougher ride and the acceleration is slow. This has lead me to a couple of possible choices. The Nissan Altima and the Pontiac G6. The Altima is a really nice looking car and has a smooth ride. My brother-in-law has an Altima and really likes it. I’ve always like Grand-Ams and the G6 is the car that replaced it. I’ll have to test-drive the G6 to see what it rides like. If it’s anything like the Grand-Am was, i’ll enjoy driving it a lot. Does anyone have any suggestions on cars?