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It seems that my new car has an infinite bag of tricks which pop up at the oddest times.
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She’s loaded with lots of nifty features like headlights that swivel and dim automatically, voice activated commands, and an automatic cell phone charging station as seen below.
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No, I still haven’t figured out all her gadgets and geegaws… but I will tell you my favorite. It’s a game changer and once experienced? I’m afraid there’s no going back.
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Cooling seats.
For a menopausal hot flashing woman of a certain age? This is pure gold.
My husband loves the heated steering wheel but for me it’s all about those lovely little holes in the front seats that provide blessed icy ventilation. Summer doesn’t seem quite so awful now.
(And no, that’s not dust on my screen… it’s a starry night background. We be fancy up in here.)
The other thing that tickles me about this vehicle is the plethora of safety messages that pop up.
When my husband swivels his head to scan a yard sale when driving? Pearl says “Keep your eyes on the road!”
When he was scouting something free on the curb while waiting behind a truck at a stop sign? Pearl said “Vehicle in front has moved!”
Husband thinks it’s annoying, I think it’s a riot.
When she announces, “Don’t bring home any more crap!” I may have to kiss her.
She’s only messaged once while I’ve been driving. I was playing with the gas mileage numbers and had taken my foot off the gas going down a hill to increase consumption. Apparently she thought I was falling asleep and said this:
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Ya gotta love it.
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I would love cool seats living in the desert.
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Now that I have them?
I’ll always need them…
😉
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Nice! I could go for that in the summer, but I like the seat warmers for back pain the best.
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My husband does as well. He likes the heat, I like the cold. One of us is always unhappy.
🤣
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Whoa, that a fancy-scmancy car you got there, lol. The rental I had also came with heated/cooling seats, and boy did the cooling feature help during the hot Texas August!
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I bet! We’re not nearly as hot as you and I still love the feature.
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I wrote a post sometime in the past year — something like “Toyota is not my mother.” The reminders, some of them, are helpful but it didn’t take long before the automatic lane correction (AS IF I WOULD NEED SUCH A THING) really cheesed me off and I turned it off. But it’s fun that you and the Mr have different takes on Pearl’s reminders.
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I turned off a lot of the computer taking over my driving features, but the messages just pop up on the dash quietly. They’re easy to ignore if you choose.
😉
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Can you get a celebrity voice add-on pkg? I’ve read about them, but never heard one in action.
I love when my 2010 car’s navigation voicd tries to pronouce spanish names like Sepulveda and LaCienega. It’s so bad that I once circled back to make it say it again.
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We have a lot of Native American names up here that navigation butchers as well.
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Oh, those must be great!!
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How does it pronounce La Jolla?
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Ohh… haven’t done that one yet!!
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That would be a long drive just to find out. You can probably have enough fun with leaving LA. It almost makes me want to try my car’s system to see if it can pronounce Oconomowoc or Muscoda.
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I’m pretty sure it can’t… but the result should be entertaining!!
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I’m glad you mentioned it was a starry night, because I saw that pic and seriously wondered why the hell you hadn’t dusted off the screen first.
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It’s too new to be that dusty…
😉
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Yeah. All that technology runs through the cars CPU’s (computers). Lose the CPU, the car is dead in the water, and the cost to repair is freaking ridiculous.
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That’s the world in which we live.
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The husband has cooling seats in his truck but I ride in it so infrequently that I don’t know if I’ve ever had the chance to experience them. Though my ‘Ru is 5 years old now, it was the first car I had with a backup camera. For me, that was, and probably still is, my favorite feature. There’s only one thing I dislike (no, hate) about my ‘Ru. It automatically turns on the radio when I start the car. I’ve been to online forums to see if I can turn it off, but apparently not. Drives me crazy. Does your ‘Ru do this, too?
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My ‘14 didn’t have that issue but I thought the ‘25 did… until I found a work around. With voice command, I just hit the button and say turn off radio.
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With everything your car sees, I’d stay away from sex in the back seat. Your car would probably put the video on YouTube.
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Ack!
You may be right… it came with a 360 degree camera!
😳
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