My Own Father and other things

So I just realized that my own father reads Bobs Blog and not mine! What does this say about the status of my relationship with my father? I guess either I am not that interesting or, much more likely, he just lost the email I sent that had my Blog address. Or he forgot, or whatever. Either way it bothers me. In other news I am super excited because we turn in our worthless Jeep Grand Cherokee this week and wash our hands of it for ever. It was a 39 month lease and we are way under on the miles we bought so hopefully we will be one of the rare cases where we get money back rather than cutting a huge check.
Reasons why I hate our 2006 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi:
1) Gas mileage- it never achieved better than 13.8 on average. This is the worst gas mileage of ANY 8 cyl engine I have even driven. It is supposed to have cyl cut off for highway mileage but I never saw ANY difference on ANY highway trip EVER. The funny thing was I could tow a couple thousand pounds and it would STILL be 13-14mpg. WTF?
2) The design of the rear seat. It made it highly difficult for a normal baby seat (front facing) to be installed properly! Why? because the headrest was affixed permanently to the seat and was designed to fold down automatically when you fold the seat down. IT WAS NOT REMOVABLE. In addition the seat could not be tilted back. So what did I have to do to get a baby seat to fit? I had to stick a screw driver up into the foam of the rear headrest, find a hidden release- remove the headrest and then turn it around and put it back on to cover the large metal SPIKES sticking out of the seat. I like to cover large metal spikes that are right over my baby's head and designed to fold in on him. So even in doing this it was difficult to get the seat to sit properly. I had to FORCE the seat BACK against the jeep seat to get it at the proper angle.
3) A wind leak in the windshield that was never fixed by the dealer- not until the windshield broke and was replaced did the wind leak go away- this means the windshield FROM THE FACTORY was bad and the dealership was too stupid to replace it
4) the Nav system- what a PIECE OF CRAP
5) The seats were hard and thin
6) The shocks that hold up the hood FAILED and will no longer hold the hood up- I have to use a piece of wood
7) the battery died- and the brand new expensive battery I installed not more than 6 months ago seems like it is dieing- this means there is either an electrical draw, the starter is sucking WAY too many amps or the alternator is not charging properly- either way for a 3 year old vehicle this is just crazy
8) Not enough room to ride shotgun in front of my kid
9) It handles like a truck and yet it is a unibody construction- It also is not that great off road to warrant such horrible suspension (yes it is trail rated)
10) Combine all these things from up above and I get the last reason- RESALE value- I could not get out of the lease earlier because the Jeep is worth nothing- probably because the rest of the world knows all these things I mention above and does not want to own it either.
What a nightmare- I am so glad that this vehicle was leased and not purchased. I am also glad that it is going away for ever.

We replaced the Jeep with a Mazda CX-9. I will publish soon about why this is such a nice vehicle and the buying process.