> If all you want is the basic mileage, (not the trip odometer reading),
> there's no need to use keys. Just push the button next to the odo & it will
> show the miles for about 10 seconds.

Indeed, it does. One of the buttons in the column to the right of
the instrument cluster does this -- the one with the icon that one is
reluctant to push because it seems equally likely to mean either
"dome light" or "shower." Ah, well; buttons labeled only with
graphical metaphors that reach Rorshachian levels of cryptical
evocativeness are hardly unique to either GM or cars; they pervade the
me-Tarzan world of post-linguistic user interfaces, and are fun to try
and figure out when stuck in traffic.


: There is a time limit on the retained accessory power, no matter
whether you
: open the driver's door or not. If you would sit there and wait, you
will
: find that the radio eventually cuts off

That's reassuring. Five minutes or so was a large enough value of
"eventually" to cut off my confidence.

(Could be worse. My former car-in-law, an early 90s Mitsubishi, had
three computers, one of which was called ETACS or AWACS or NIKE AJAX
or some such thing and had no jobs apparent to me besides doing a half-
minute fade-to-black on the interior lights and giving marching orders
to the motorized mouse who ran up and down the door frame with the
shoulder harness in his teeth. None of these controllers among 'em
was smart enough to realize that since you'd removed the key and
closed the door, maybe you didn't want to leave the parking lights on
forever. Complicated technology isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Complicated technology with either bugs or gaping oversights within
its bailiwick drives me nuts. Give me either complexity that is
properly sorted out in some way that makes my life better, or give me
simplicity.)


| GM just doesn't sweat the details. {...} NB: my experiences are
with an '05;
| maybe the reskin changed some of these issues.

In a lot of ways I really like that Impala and could imagine being
pretty happy with one of my own. Sure, I'm spotting it a couple of
quibbles given its basicness, like whether a handling package would
make the steering feel a bit less numb and isolated, but even in motor-
pool trim it seems quiet and comfortable and gives a subjective
impression of great solidity. The present V6 in particular is a real
honey. The car is roomy and I find it attractive. All in all it
seems like a fine evolutionary fit for the traditional ecological
niche of the Impala.

Then I drive one of its stablemates assigned to another department in
the next building, and the driver's-side window makes a fingernails-on-
a-blackboard sound all the way up and all the way down, at an age of
less than a year. Details...

--Joe