The Burgundy Beast earns its break

Resting while a curious turkey walks by. 

Shortly after returning from the 2,800-mile roundtrip through the Southeast, the moment I feared since I bought my Scion XB in 2014 arrived. 

Heading home from the office in Centennial, the Burgundy Beast’s oil light blinked on. The little lamp icon only flashed for a second, but I knew what was happening under the hood. 

The engine finally began to burn oil. It was not bone dry or at risk of an engine lockup, but I bought a quart of synthetic, dumped it in, and watched the light disappear. Full oil change came 24 hours later. 

Now I check the dipstick regularly – what an appropriate name for a tool that measures oil levels with two dots, one for full and one for low. My 2002 Corolla started burning oil somewhere around 100,000. I came very close to engine lock before the light came on. The blue Corolla lasted another three years before Monteagle killed it, the transmission grinding when a truck cut out and forced me to break too fast for the transmission. I’m almost over that. Before the oil burning started, the XB reached an impressive 223,000, which include four long trips east – three to Georgia, one to Ohio – since December 2023. Each trip exceeded 2,500 miles roundtrip. 

Was I pushing my luck? I never felt that. I didn’t push the car and took frequent breaks via National Park Service sites and more. In fairness,this last time marked the first time I did the drive to Atlanta and back to Colorado two days each way. 

The Burgundy Beast has travelled to 33 states, Idaho the most recent. We only missed regions - the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and the West Coast. I could probably still get Nevada, but I can’t foresee heading that far again. 

My car is not in imminent danger of burning up. But the car must retire from long trips. Rental cars are the near-future for my western swings. 

I don’t like it, but the Scion is still good for Colorado driving – well, maybe Albuquerque to the South, Wichita to the east, and Rapid City to the north. But it won’t cross multiple time zones in a day again. 

Harder still - Saving for a new car must begin. The calculus has changed – someone of my income does not simply walk into a showroom and get a new car in the 2020s. Stagnant incomes and soaring car costs mean I might buy used for the first time. 

The Burgundy Beast will still get its highway and mountain exercise. But its hardest-driven days have passed. Its successor might already sit on a local car lot.