Well, our marketing guy, Avi, is still putting the Beetle through its paces. It's performing so admirably that we really have little more to report this month. Copious amounts of precipitation in Southern California did little to dampen the relationship between driver and mechanical insect. Avi noted that the Beetle's 205/55R16 tires held the road tightly as rain continued to fall and traction coefficients continued to decrease. The Beetle just didn't seem to mind it one bit.
Avi was still irked that the 3rd gear shift kept banging his knuckles right into the hazard button, and this month also criticized a clutch he felt was too finicky. We did find a few "real" problems in need of attention: a missing emergency brake cap, a missing bumper plug, and a shimmy through the wheel at high speeds. The shimmy was noticed by features editor, Scott Mead, who commented: "Driving at highway speeds while turning produced a vibration similar to what you would find if you had a bad CV joint. This VW now vibrates more than a Magic Fingers bed in a Motel 6 in East Texas. Got a quarter?" We'll have these problems looked at when we take the Beetle in for its routine service in the near future.
Total Odometer Reading: 30,566
Best Fuel Economy: 36.1 mpg
Worst Fuel Economy: 31.4 mpg
Body Damage: $0
Maintenance Costs: $0
Problems: Emergency brake cap and bumper plug missing in action, shimmy coming through steering wheel (possibly due to an imbalanced wheel or damaged suspension component).
