Got this earlier today, based on some interneting I just did there is a way to figure out the order priorty based off the order ID but I haven't been able to figure that out yet.

Much excite.

So uhhh, I got promoted yesterday. Head empty bottle returner and discarded beer can picker upper. It will be about a 30% raise plus the opportunity for many more bonuses.

Also, Pre-production Ranger Raptors are finally being built in the states.

Post whatever you want, cause I will be busy AF today doing my current job and having meetings for my new job and I probably won't be back on until tonight.

I was reading this article on Jalopnik, I know it's my own fault for going over there. I guess the plant where GM builds the Sierra's and Silverado's is in Mexico and GM only pays the workers $3 and hour. I had no idea they were made in Mexico and was pretty surprised when I saw the "assembled in" sticker on my truck for the first time.

My first thought after reading the article was, I definitely need to make sure my next vehicle is made in a factory that pays the workers a decent wage, preferably union made in America.

My next thought was if everyone does that the workers at the plant being paid shit will be paid nothing because the plant will get shutdown cause no one is buying the trucks they are producing.

My next, next thought was oh ya, corporations are shit and there is really no way to avoid these situations and you just have to decide what matters to you and work within the confines of your own morals.

Then, I read the comments on the article and was reminded I am a shit person for even owning a truck and because I own a truck I hate Mexicans or something. So, I have decided to find a manufacturer that still uses child labor and buy my next vehicle from them.

Some of you may have seen me mention Henri in a Caturday post awhile back.

https://opposite-lock.com/post/1067055

Henri is not our cat, despite his insistence that he is.

Yesterday Mrs. Blacktruck was outside watering our flowers, our neighbor came running over and said that our cat had gotten into her house, I happened to walk outside right after the neighbor came over, I knew our cats were in the house. We realized pretty quickly that she was talking about Henri, mostly because he has also walked in our house and made himself comfy. I went over to the neighbors front door and called his name and he came right out to me.

The neighbor said he really acts like your cat... So as of now, Henri is still not my cat and he is implicating me in his repeated crimes of trespassing.

Dammit Henri

The completely hypothetical poll is no longer hypothetical. A Ranger Raptor in Shelter Green has been ordered. Now comes the waiting, production is supposed to start in August. There is no word so far on allocations or anything but when the dealership gets their first one it is mine.

I haven't been doing much on Oppo lately aside from lurking, but I wanted to stick my head in and say hi and wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

As promised, I test-drove a new M2 this afternoon.

First things first, IMO it does look better in person. That being said I did like the front in pictures so if anyone doesn't like the front, my opinion may not work for you. Except for what I am going to mention below, I thought it was a good-looking car.

A little background on the test drive, it rained here (Indianapolis) most of the day today and I haven't driven a stick in a couple of years so I didn't do any hard driving, I did push it in some corners and blast up and down a couple of onramps but nothing too serious. I am sure it performs just fine when driven hard, I was honestly more worried about the general everyday stuff since it will be my daily.

Some pics, I am sure everyone that is interested has seen pics so I only snapped a few pics of things I didn't want to talk about.

After looking around the car in the showroom for a while, we took it on a decently long, 45 minutes to an hour, test drive. The salesman was really great about navigating, he just asked what kind of roads I wanted to drive on (all of them) and he gave excellent directions to make that happen.

A word about some of the settings before I get into anything specific. I put the steering into the middle (Sport) setting for the whole drive. The weight was good, I didn't take it out of that setting for the whole drive, I like somewhat heavy steering and that setting was perfect for me. I could imagine being completely fine with it all the time. I randomly moved the engine setting in between Efficient, Sport and Sport Plus through the drive, and they all did as advertised, with progressively better acceleration and responsiveness as the modes went further up in sportiness, I am sure they would be more pronounced if I was driving in better weather where getting on it seemed safer, even driving somewhat gentle the difference was obvious.

Onto the suspension settings, having not driven anything sporty in a while I was expecting Nurburgring tuned punishment. I honestly thought if there would be a deal breaker for me it would end up being the suspension. We started the test drive in the general area of the dealership, the roads were pretty well kept (for the Midwest at the end of winter) I left it in Comfort for these roads, it was way more comfortable than I expected. We also did a little 2 lane back street on the way to the interstate, it wasn't too well maintained and the Comfort setting was good there too. It handled that relatively normal Midwest weather-beaten street just fine. I would say it wasn't very different from Mrs. Blacktruck's C300.

As we approached the interstate I put it in the Sport setting for the on-ramp and kept it there the whole time we were on the interstate. The interstate we were on isn't especially smooth, I wouldn't even say it is the best in the Indianapolis area. Again, it was completely fine, not too hard, a little bouncy over some rougher stuff but not any worse than I think any other modern sports car would be. I honestly think my old man self would be completely fine driving in Sport mode all the time.

After we exited the interstate we went into a little town called Whitestown, if anyone recognizes the name it might be from the tornado that hit it earlier this month. Of course, there is still obvious damage, most pertinent to Oppo might be a late 60's Dodge Challenger and Chevy Vega coupe that didn't fair too well, the Challenger had definitely been flipped over and was turned right side up. I didn't get a really good look at the Vega but it also had some damage.
The roads through Whitestown aren't the best, small-town budgets lead to shit roads, perfect time for Sport Plus suspension, again it was bouncy, but, if I absolutely had to I would be okay with driving it in that mode all of the time, I even went over some railroad tracks and they were bearable. Mrs. Blacktruck was in the back and agreed with my assessment from back there.

The clutch had the weird BMW uptake that I have heard and read about but I got used to it pretty quickly, nothing annoying there.

Onto the interior. As expected all of the materials were nice (no gloss black) and the ambient lighting was fun to play with. I drove, the salesman sat shotgun and Mrs. Blacktruck was behind him. He was about 6' 2" or 3" Mrs. Blacktruck is 5'6" he had his seat decently far back but was a little scrounged up. Mrs. Blacktruck was completely comfortable in the back.

As far as cargo area for our needs, between the back seat and trunk I don't think we would have any problems doing our regular grocery shopping and Costco runs, there is probably even enough room for a good road trip if we pack reasonably.

After having test sat in a BMW X3M a few months ago and really not liking the seats this was an area I was worried about, I was wrong. When I first got in the car I did feel a bit like I was sitting on, not in the seat. After a few minutes though that feeling went away and I was comfortable. I feel like with some more fine-tuning I would be very happy.

My next concern was the screen for a dashboard, I didn't mind it at all once I got to driving. I still think the design trend of just throwing screens on the dash is lazy. That being said driving with the instrument cluster was fine. The middle screen with all of the settings wasn't ideal, most of the icons looked too similar to easily identify them at a glance. But, I did pretty quickly remember how to get to the main vehicle settings from the home screen just from playing with them on the drive. I am quite sure after owning the car for a couple of weeks and setting up the shortcut keys repetition would kick in and it wouldn't be an issue.

I still don't like the look of the screen from anywhere but the driver's seat, I could live with it though. My biggest worry would be keeping the area at the bottom of the screen where it meets the dash clean. I could totally see something getting back there and just living there forever.

Up next, a more detailed look at the exterior bits I didn't like. I am going to put in the pictures of the areas first then I'll highlight the details.

The rear reflector and parking radar are my biggest dislike. The rear corners are the area I thought I would hate from the pictures I have seen. Aside from the black surround on the reflectors and parking sensor, I thought it looked good. Getting a black car would fix that, but I doubt my next car will be black so it is something for me to think about.

Onto the front, again damn radar sensors. The ones in the center section of the grill don't bother me, BMW took the time to give them a decent design, they almost look like they serve some kind of aerodynamic purpose. The ones on the outside got to me though, they really look tacked on, they are just bad. No way around them.

To summarize, I really like it. When the salesman said $1000 refundable deposit to put in an order today, Mrs. Blacktruck told me to do it but I couldn't.
That being said, it had nothing to do with the car. I am being indecisive, I have done the switch from a more practical vehicle to a sports car in the past and have always regretted it. I am torn right now between the upcoming Ranger Raptor, a fully optioned Bronco, and this. If I wanted to do 3 cars I definitely would be ordering one.

Also, after finding these wheels, I can't decide on a color.

I had narrowed my choice down to either Toronto Red or possibly Zandvoort Blue but since I found those wheels I am not sure. I am definitely going to order the wheels when I order the car and I am 100% going with the brown interior. I was thinking I order those and maybe go with black or white exterior, but I think it would work with the red too and I want a car with color this time. So, once I decide if I want to give up having a more practical vehicle, I have to decide on a color. The dealer has 14 people ahead of me on their list with no idea how many or often they will get allocations. This could all be for naught. But eventually, I will make a decision. Just not right now.

Finally, @davesaddiction the XM does have pillows, which the salesman preemptively told me to leave in the plastic.

**NINJA EDIT: For clarity on the color. Toronto Red is the red of the XM pictured above. I could have said that better. **

Greetings and Salutations. Hope everyone is doing well.

Life is good no COVID, have a job, have booze, no complaints really.

Without going into too many details of how I earn my gas money. Today should be pretty cool. I've never been in a car factory before.

UPDATE: The tour was basically a bust, COVID, microchips, blah, blah, blah...
Just ended up sitting through some stupid meetings. Hopefully next time, I will probably be down there again sometime soon.

The Cyber Truck is totally real, they have like 7 for sale at Kroger.

(sarc, the Cyber Truck will never be mass produced)

@john-norris That is one of our many ongoing jokes about him. "Human, let me in my house. I already told you that you have adopted me."

@kiltedpadre sorta, but more like if I married someone and they told me after the fact that they have a son that sometimes does a bit of petty crime and he is moving in but just for a little while. Then the son refuses to move out.

@Snakesm13 Nice.

@derp Because he has owners, I guess we are just cooler than them.

@Qaaaaa The neighbor behind us.

@ibRAD I didn't name him, his owners named him, they live behind us and let him out during the day.

We did feed him a couple of times when we first saw him because we thought he was a stray. After we got the number off his collar and called them and realized he had owners we stopped putting food out for him. He still hangs out here though. He is in our backyard right now.

Some of you may have seen me mention Henri in a Caturday post awhile back.

https://opposite-lock.com/post/1067055

Henri is not our cat, despite his insistence that he is.

Yesterday Mrs. Blacktruck was outside watering our flowers, our neighbor came running over and said that our cat had gotten into her house, I happened to walk outside right after the neighbor came over, I knew our cats were in the house. We realized pretty quickly that she was talking about Henri, mostly because he has also walked in our house and made himself comfy. I went over to the neighbors front door and called his name and he came right out to me.

The neighbor said he really acts like your cat... So as of now, Henri is still not my cat and he is implicating me in his repeated crimes of trespassing.

Dammit Henri

@HammerheadFistpunch

"I drew a space ship for you."

"Restraining order Dave! You have to stay 300 feet away from me and the kids, and that's a fucking lighthouse, I'm calling the police!"

@Plymouth-Superbird said in I am getting my first car:

I may only be 14 but I am buying it with my own money

That's the real highlight here. Congrats on getting the car and paying for it on your own.

@Snakesm13 it's really just the back seats, the front is good, it is subdued just enough by the dash and center console. If someone is sitting in the back, there is nowhere in normal line of sight that breaks up the orange.

Orange is probably my favorite color, 1/2 of my office at home is orange but that back seat is a lot.