This week we said goodbye to a good and faithful servant, our 2014 VW Passat TDI (diesel engine) who we named Xenon. She was the second diesel Passat we owned.
In 2012 we bought a new one, silver, from the dealer in Springfield, Missouri. Randy was in love with the diesel engine and the car worked well for me to drive back and forth to work at the Lake of the Ozarks. It was also a great car for road trips. A comfortable and smooth ride, it got about 44 mpg on the highway, so we could just about get from our home in Camdenton to my mom’s home in Wisconsin (615 miles) on one tank of fuel. When the VW diesel scandal broke in 2014 I was so mad at the government I bought VW stock and wouldn’t give the 2012 back until they found us another one that has been through the mandated “fix”. That’s how we came to own Xenon.
Xenon took us to Florida and back 4 times the year and a half after I retired. When we moved, Randy’s HUGE truck (named Buck), was no longer necessary after we sold Tilley, our camper. We shared Xenon for a couple years to see if it was possible for a retired couple in Florida to live with just one vehicle. It was, but we found the room in a 4-door sedan body style restrictive for trips to Home Depot (for instance). We bought a KIA Sorento SUV last August, conducting another experiment to see how often we NEEDED two vehicles at the same time. The Sorento sat in the garage, only being taken out for the two road trips we took since we bought it. All running around town, except when we had a lot to fit into the car, was done with Xenon.
It made no sense for us to continue to support two cars, so Xenon was sold this week to a lovely family who have 2 other VW diesel Passats. They texted a couple of days ago and said they love the car and are keeping her name. I’m delighted she’s gone to a good home. She served us well.
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