This week Michael goes off to college at Cal Maritime Academy, where someone else can marvel at cooking breakfast for him. I think he will major in fighting pirates or something like that, they have among the highest career placement rate in the country. Yeah, he’ll also play NAIA basketball, and hopefully we’ll see a lot of games. More on that later...
Anyway, Dad and son go out looking for a car for college, Mom was not invited because Mom tends to like BMWs, and I was determined that we’d get something more practical. So what did we wind up getting? A 2000 BMW 528i. Michael fits like a glove in it. Cherry condition...all the options. It seemed like a great deal too, I used my trusty iPhone and Kelley Bluebook app (i.kbb.com) all the way, and the price was at least $3k under suggested retail. Mom came in for final approval and negotiated an even better deal, and found a flaw (I knew it was too good to be true) where the car would’t reverse (it did when I tested it). So I tried it and sure enough it wouldn't reverse. I drive us back to the dealer, try one more time, and it works perfectly (the mirror tilts down, like a lot of BMWs do, as well). Hmmmm...You know BMWs and those German engineers...it could be a safety button she accidentally hit, I just found the manual that says:

"A detent prevents inadvertent shifts to the "Reverse" or "Park" selector lever positions. To disengage the detent, press the button on the front of the shift knob (arrow)."

What the heck?

We’re getting a full inspection at a BMW dealer Monday just in case, and we got a full warranty in the price (turns out BMWs of this year do have transmission problems, in fact there is a website called http://noreverse.org/ started up by frustrated BMW owners). If it does turn out to have the same problem, I figure it will cost $1800 to fix, which still makes this car a bargain...in the meantime Michael needs to learn to make it a habit to back into parking spots instead of forward ;-).