The end of an era

Today I say good bye to my sporty little two-door coupe; the Mitsubishi Lancer I’ve been driving since the age of 20.

It was a wonderful car, never left me stranded, never had any mechanical issues. But alas, a two-door car is not very baby-friendly so it’s time to say farewell.

One comforting thing about the Lancer though – I knew all of its ‘sounds’. I drove this car when I had normal hearing. I drove it when I wore a hearing aid. Drove it deaf, without an aid. And I drove it with bionic ears.

I’ll never forget the way it started to sound when I was losing my hearing. The engine was amplified and distorted. The alarm beeps were off pitch.

I’ll never forget what happened the time I drove it while I was deaf. I drove the car forward in the driveway, feeling it hit a small obstacle (a loose garden brick) but assuming that I could drive over it without any problems. Then Jase came running towards the car having heard a horrible grinding sound that I couldn’t hear myself. Next thing I knew, the front end of the car snapped off. Oops.

And I’ll never forget the first time I drove it ‘bionically’. The sheer joy at the independence of driving myself somewhere again. The sound of railway boom gates closing. Other cars beeping at each other. The engine transmission changing gears. The radio. Oh, and that day when my cochlear implants allowed me to hear a horrible clicking sound coming from the front of the car. I pulled over in a panic, ready to pop the bonnet, only to discover a massive wad of duct tape stuck to my front tyre, causing all the racket. (Makes me think back to when we were kids and used to stick things to the spokes of our bicycle wheels to create the same sound effect!)

Ah, I have a lot of memories in that car!

But now we say hello to our Holden Cruze. And the fun part for me now is to learn all the new car sounds! So many clicks and beeps to explore.

My first introduction to a new sound came about thirty seconds into the test drive. I’d just pulled up to a stop sign when I heard a faint, internal clicking sound. Uh oh. What did I press by mistake? It sounded like I’d just popped the boot.

‘No, don’t worry,’ said the sales rep, recognising my look of panic. ‘The doors automatically lock after you take off.’

‘Oh!’ Phew. Thought I’d touched something I shouldn’t have!

I had decided to drive the car with the Everyday program. It’s really my preferred program and not one that I was able to use with the Lancer. The traffic noise was always far too loud in the Lancer, so I used to use the Noise program for driving. When I realised Zoom had recently been enabled on the Noise program though, I switched to Focus instead so that I could hear emergency sirens behind me or people talking to me from the back seat. But Focus tended to amplify the engine sound sometimes so it was a little annoying. Still, I just put up with it.

In the Cruze though, the Everyday program is absolutely fine. And I’m very relieved! I had the sales rep sitting beside me, and Jase in the back seat. I could hear everything Jase said during the drive, without having to turn around or look at him in the rear vision mirror. All the internal car sounds were comfortably audible without the traffic sounds being overpowering. Later, we swapped seats. Jase took his turn at the wheel, I sat beside him, and the sales rep at the back. Again, I could hear the sales rep just fine without having to turn around. Hearing what’s happening behind me is pretty important to me because I’m going to want to be able to hear the sounds the baby is making back there! While Jase drove, I experimented a little with the Noise and Focus programs but didn’t find either of them as effective as Everyday. Even when we took the car on the freeway (picture the sales rep biting his nails at this point, especially when Jase was driving), the Everyday program was fine. I should point out that I asked my audiologist to disable the ASC (autosensitivity) on this program a long time ago. I don’t like a noise filter on my standard program – I find the constant shift in volume too distracting. I’d rather have a more accurate perception of what’s noisy and what’s quiet. Just a personal preference – I know some people love ASC on Everyday.

One thing Jase got me to do before we swapped seats – reverse park the car. Er … OK. But of course he wasn’t just trying to make my life difficult, ha ha. He had a valid reason.

‘Can you hear the parking sensors?’

‘Yep!’

‘OK, so the beeps get closer and closer together as you get nearer to the obstacle behind you,’ said the sales rep.

I edged backwards slowly, concentrating on the beeps.

‘Keep going until you hear a flat, single tone,’ said the sales rep. ‘Then we’ll get out and I’ll show you how close you are.’

I had a huge grin on my face listening to those beeps, I tell you!

Lucky for Jase we get the car today because I’ve driven him mad playing with all the car sounds on Holden’s interactive website. (Cheeky giggle.) You can hit the space bar when you want to start the engine. Practice listening to the parking sensors by using the arrow keys to interactively park the car. (And I always make sure I go too far so that I get that frantic single warning tone!) Turn the headlights on and off with a little clicking sound. Play with the radio controls. Listen to the whirring sound of the power windows going up. Then down. Then up. Then down. 

Sorry Jase! I will stop that now!  

PS: I’ve been trying to think of a name for our car. After days of trying to find a word that sounds good in front of the word ‘Cruze’ (like Ocean Cruze, River Cruze, or Venice Cruze), Jase happened to mention that the sales rep who sold it to us shares the same name as David Hasselhoff’s character in Knight Rider: Michael Knight. He chuckled. And my eyes lit up. And when he saw my eyes lit up, he knew straight away what I was thinking and his chuckle immediately stopped. ‘Oh no, no no …’

‘Yes!’ I said. ‘That means that “KITT” is on the table!’ :-D