Ermintrude may be on borrowed time.

It is a sad day. Management has sounded the death knell for my beloved Ermintrude. Apparently 91k and 8 years old is too old for a working vehicle as it is anyone's guess as to how much longer the reliability will hold out and she is starting to show her age cosmetically. I am gutted and have been raging against the decision all day. The only upside is that she might be being replaced with a very late gen3 but an automatic.

Much sadness and wailing and gnashing of teeth. I don't want another one, I love mine. And the cost of replacement will cover a number of years of repairs. But it is all falling on deaf ears. Woe is me and my beloved Ermintrude.

This is why I have been having the major foot stamping session. Ermintrude is a good car. Binning her on a whim at half life makes no sense. I intend to find out who has been putting these ideas into management's head and expose them as a liar. Apart from anything else I don't think that there is a much more reliable vehicle than a Jimny for what we're doing and expecting totally fault free motoring is unrealistic.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

It's sounding like a foregone conclusion that I am staring down the barrel of an automatic one. So lemonade out of lemons I suppose. I have been thinking about the essential characteristics of the auto Jimny and with the experience I already have I am thinking about a more cruise oriented approach to the new one if and when it comes. Ermintrude is a very full on experience and I can't help but drive accordingly when the opportunity presents itself. Obviously I will be transferring the tunes to seating and probably replicating the brakes but it is whether I replicate the same suspension or go for a softer one that is more about riding nice than towing and cornering? I don't know.