At the end of last month, we retrieved our New Beetle from McDonald VW in Littleton, Colo., where a fog light was replaced and paint chips were repaired. Shortly after leaving the dealership, we noticed that the right blinker was blinking twice as fast as the left-a problem we had never before encountered. We made another appointment, but had to wait two weeks to take it in.

During those two weeks, we ventured into the beautiful Rocky Mountains over the Fourth of July weekend for a camping trip. We were, once again, impressed with how fast the Beetle zipped up I-70 in 95-degree heat without even a breathless grunt, while hordes of other motorists were stopped along the road, smoke spilling out of their overheated engines. We made it to our site overlooking Twin Lakes in just two-and-a-quarter hours-a new record. On the way back to Denver in end-of-holiday-weekend traffic, the Beetle's brakes started to squeal as we crawled back down I-70 in four hours of stop-and-go madness. After pulling off at a gas station and giving the car a rest, the squealing disappeared. That same weekend, while we were parking the car at Coors Field for a Colorado Rockies game, a woman squealed at us incessantly, repeating how much she loved our car. Our driver this month decided that the automatic door locks don't unlock fast enough after the car is stopped. We constantly had to wait or pull twice on the door handle to get out of the vehicle.

Shortly after the weekend excursion, our digital odometer display went completely blank. It came back on briefly, then flashed out again and stayed out until the day before we were ready to take the car into service. Since the display was working when we finally dropped off the car, the service department was unable to determine the problem. They did fix the blinker speed discrepancy, though, by replacing a bulb.

For now, the Buglet has no obvious problems and our editor-in-chief has taken the car on a trek across the West to Los Angeles, where the Beetle will remain for the next several months.

Total Odometer Reading: 23,072
Best Fuel Economy: 33.9 mpg
Worst Fuel Economy: 32.7 mpg
Body Damage: $21.16
Maintenance Costs: $0
Problems: Right blinker blinking too fast, digital odometer display blanks out intermittently.