The H3 Might Be Going Bye Bye

Back in 2013 I bought my '07 Hummer H3 after my girlfriend suggested that I move in with her.  She live further north and at that time my only car was an '07 Mustang GT.  Moving meant a longer commute in heavier snow.  There was no way I was doing that in a Mustang.  I saw the H3 for sale while I was getting some service done, it looked big and bad ass.  I thought, "There's the solution. A big Hummer would get me through any snow Ontario has to dish out, and I can park my Mustang in the winter. So I bought it.  I had big dreams with the H3.  I was gonna start off-roading, we were gonna camp more, go biking.  It was all justified.

Now it's 2017 and I did none of those things.  All I did do was drive it to work and twice a year to the States.  It certainly lived up the my first assumption that it would do well in the snow.  It hardly acknowledges any weather exists at all.  It effortlessly climbs through any snowstorm or flooding I encountered.  But I never did the cool off-roading or backwoods camping or anything.  I just ground away on those expensive tires commuting.

As it aged it of course started having issues, mainly electronic.  One day you start it up and there would be an message about some failure, then the next time you start it up it was gone.  I dumped an additional $4000 on maintenance and various emission sensor replacements.  Then last week I was driving to work and I got a message saying, "STABILITY SYSTEM FAILURE." What the heck is that?  I looked online and it said it's a blanket warning that covers many different things.  Okay that's enough.  With an exhaust leak that I was told could cost anywhere from $300 to $3000, new electronic problems, and big $2000 tires that need replaced I think it might be time to take a serious look at how much this vehicle was costing me.

I grabbed a pen, paper and calculator and was pretty shocked to discover that just in gas the Hummer was costing me $520 CAD a month!  Just in gas!  That's approximately $67 each time I fill and I was filling twice a week.  Pile on insurance and other expenses I was just $200 short of a Ford Focus RS payment.

Imagine a Ford Focus RS as a daily driver rather than an H3.  I figure it would at least cut the gas in half.  Most of my commute is highway and while the Focus isn't spectacular at fuel economy the H3 is awful.  Okay maybe I'm just trying to justify buying a Focus RS but it is better gas mileage than my Hummer H3.  It is AWD for snow, and it does come with a set if winter rims and tires along with summer rims and tires.

I've already talked to one Ford dealer that could get me the deal I wanted but only had a Nitro Blue care available and I'd rather have the Stealth Gray.  Today I spoke with a different dealer that says he can get me a Stealth Gray Focus RS.  If he can give me what I want for my Hummer I could be driving a Focus RS around as a daily driver.

The Hummer was awesome for what it was and I'm probably going to miss it but the expense and the fact that I never used it how it was meant to be used make me feel this is for the best.  I'm a speed guy, my brother is the offroad guy.

GT500 Postmortem: Buyer's Remorse?

I’ve owned several what I would consider to be nice cars.  They were all “every man” cars, nothing too exotic or fancy.  The Mustang is of course one of these, you can count several on almost any drive.  The GT500 is sort of a Mustang but then it isn’t one and purchasing the GT500 had some implications that I did not expect.  What I’m referring to is the way owning one shifted people’s views of me.

I have a group of “car guy” friends and we were all kind of in the same boat, tuning and upgrading what we have and dreaming of something better.  We could all relate to each other and shoot the shit about car culture and what was happening in it.  Then I bought the GT500 and I was kind of surprised to discover I’d been kicked out of the group.  Not literally of course but the attitudes of the guys I used to talk to certainly changed towards me.  Instead of being excited and encouraging about my purchase they had a bunch of jealousy and hatred.  Two people flat out told me they were jealous, another said they hoped I wrapped it around a tree, one said they wished they had my problems, and even my brother said, “I kind of hate you.”

I really never saw this coming.  It’s not like I bought a Ferrari or a Lamborghini, it’s basically just a Mustang with some extra juice.  If I had built my Mustang GT up to 662hp with a bunch for track goodies everyone would be fine with it.  But something about purchasing the Shelby gave people the attitude that I had obtained something that they cannot and therefore I’m an asshole.

Just to be clear I’m not wealthy.  I’m not rolling in cash and on a whim decided to drop a pile of cash on a play thing.  If anyone looked at my budget they would say I should not have purchased it.  I’m going to be paying a lot of money every month for a very long time.  But I made the decision that I wanted to have this and I made the sacrifice to have this huge burden on my budget. 

I’m a car guy, cars are my hobby and passion so I did what I felt I needed to do to make me happy.  I went from a car that I was extremely bored with and a car that really had nowhere to go in regards to tuning and upgrades, to a car with loads of possibilities.  Even in stock form I have so much to learn from it.  And from an investment standpoint it’s a car that could even pass on to my kids for them to sell or whatever.

If I could do it all over again I would not buy the GT500.  Normally I don’t give a crap about what people think or say but these were my buds.  I don’t want them thinking I’m some rich twat dropping bills on whatever I want.  It’s not like that at all.  So I asked the dealer if we could forget the whole thing and just switch it all back.  They were not responsive to this idea so I guess it's mine.