For several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s I drove a boxy sport utility vehicle. It was a Mitsubishi Montero. The Montero, marked in the rest of the world as a Patero, was Mitsubishi’s attempt to enter the lucrative market forged by the British Land Rover that was successfully imitated by the Toyota Land Cruiser. Those vehicles became world famous for their reliability and repairability no matter where they were driven. Mitsubishi was less successful with its first foray into the growing sport utility vehicle market. Our Montero, a 1991 model, was a very good go-anywhere vehicle. We drove it over 200,000 miles, often carrying loads that exceed its design. Once, I loaded all of the wood for a 12’ x 12’ deck raised 6’ off the ground onto the roof rack of the vehicle. It strained, but carried the load and delivered it successfully. Another time we drove the Montero with our entire family, including a Japanese exchange student on a monumental road trip through South Dakota, Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington before returning back to South Dakota. On that trip we had two roof pods for cargo and pulled a popup camp trailer with a canoe on top of the trailer. Then one day, while alone in the vehicle, I was driving on very icy roads. I was going slow, about 30 mph, when it started to slide sideways. When the tires on the right side of the vehicle got to the edge of the pavement and gained a bit of traction on the grass at the edge of the road, the car tipped over onto its side. As accidents go, it wasn’t very dramatic. I was going very slow. It didn’t break any of the glass of the vehicle, including the outside mirror on the side on which it landed. A bit of damage to the front fender was all of the body work required after the accident. However, it lost my confidence at how easily it tipped onto its side. I decided that the time had come to sell the vehicle. I found an eager customer in the mechanic who had been servicing the car for more than 100,000 miles.

One thing about that boxy vehicle, however, was that it was a magnet for rock chips in the windshield. I don’t know how many times I had chips repaired. Even though I always tried to get them repaired as soon as they occurred, I think that we replaced the windshield in that car at least eight or ten times. It seemed like we were constantly receiving new chips.

I hadn’t thought about that car very much in a long time, but this summer has been a season for our little Subaru. The car, which has been very reliable and is our daily driver, had a windshield chip right at the base of the glass where I didn’t notice it. Last winter that chip cracked across the windshield. The crack was low and not obstructing my vision as I drove, so I left it unprepared during the winter when I thought I was most likely to get additional chips. When summer came, I had a new windshield installed in the car. Within a week, I got another chip. I got that repaired as soon as possible, noting that chip repair was over four times - nearly five times - as expensive as it had been when we owned that Mitsubishi. I don’t think I went three weeks before another rock hit the windshield causing a chip. I have an appointment to get that chip repaired today and I noticed yesterday that there is yet another chip in that windshield.

The run of bad luck with the windshield is really just that, a run of bad luck. Unlike the Mitsubishi, with a nearly vertical windshield and a boxy shape that made it especially vulnerable to flying debris, this car has not been hard on windshields. We have owned it for 11 years and driven it 125,000 miles and have only had a few chips repaired until this last year. I suppose that our exposure is a bit higher now that we are commuting on a major Interstate highway in place of the relatively rural roads we drove in South Dakota. And they do use a sand and salt mixture on the roads here in the winter, which does get thrown by winter traction tires. Still, we have had good results with the car before this summer. I am fairly confident that we could go for several years without getting another chip after the repairs are made today. On the other hand I could get a new chip driving home from the glass shop. One never knows for sure.

Our semi-retired lifestyle here in the northwest does involve driving less than was the case when we were working in South Dakota. We usually commute together instead of in separate cars as was the case in our previous jobs. We only go into the office three days a week instead of six or seven. And we are diving a lot less for meetings and other gatherings in this post-covid time of Zoom meetings. That’s good for us. Being able to make the cars last a bit longer fits into our retirement budget. Knowing that we can make cars last for a lot of years is reassuring especially when we consider our ages. We won’t be buying too many more vehicles before the time comes for us to stop driving.

In the meantime, however, i’m getting a bit tired of making appointments at the glass shop. I’ll be happy if I can go a bit longer between visits. And, of course, I still need to get the windshield in the truck replaced. It too succumbed to a chip right at the bottom of the windshield that went unnoticed. the crack in that windshield is very close to the bottom of the glass and might get left unprepared for quite a while. With my luck, it feels a bit reassuring to be presenting a cracked windshield that I know needs to be replaced when driving down the highway. Maybe my luck will change and I’ll avoid new chips for a few months. I’d sure like that.