Five years back, my partner and I bought a Kia Sportage. It was a smart car — which means, in our case, it has an internal computer system that will tell you when something is wrong with the car. The sales man’s pitch was that the Kia computer network would also see any of these warnings and all we would have to do is take the car in and they could take care of it. Sold.

So a week or so back, our Sportage computer system told us that our front headlight was malfunctioning. Bob took a look and sure enough one of the lights was out. He made an appointment with the service department and this is where things get a little weird.

Keep in mind all that needs to be done is change the headlight. This is a task that in my younger days I could actually perform. Yes, a gay man without any interest in cars whatsoever, changed an automobile headlight. It wasn’t easy because nothing mechanical is easy for me. It took me a few minutes to figure it out, a mistake here and there, but I was able to do it in under an hours time.

Now days, I try not to waste my hours figuring shit out when I can pay someone to do it. They will probably take a few minutes as opposed to my hour. We gladly turned it over to the Kia Service Department.

Well, it wasn’t as quick a task as we thought. Indeed it was, at least, a two day process. First we had to bring the car in so that Kia’s mechanics could determine what the problem was. Wait. The computer system warned us. Bob visually confirmed it. Couldn’t a mechanic just do the same thing?

Apparently not. The mechanic had to inspect it first to see if the computer was right. OK. That makes sense, but once the inspection was completed, why do we have to come back another day. Because they would have to order the part. A headlight? Keep in mind this is a huge sales and service center that runs across two blocks and multiple buildings. If we were looking to replace say an engine, yes by all means, get the part, but a headlight why wouldn’t they have that in store or, at the least, call a Kia parts store in the city and get the headlight the same day. But no, we were assured it would definitely be a two day process.

Bob takes the car in and the mechanic confirms what Bob saw and the car’s internal computer system warned us about — the headlight was burned out. The mechanic also helpfully informed us of an array of other tasks that the service department might perform. None of them were particularly urgent and we didn’t ask him to investigate in the first place. Thanks but no thanks.

The mechanic would order the part and let us know when it came in. Wait, this should take 24 hours right? Not necessarily. There might not be a Kia headlight in all of San Diego county — the 8 largest metropolitan area in the United States sitting a short drive away from the 2nd largest metropolitan area in the United States. But OK, we will wait for the call.

Forty-eight hours later Bob had an appointment. Bright and early one morning, he took the car again and asked if he could just wait for them to fix because surely putting on a headlight is a pretty quick fix and would require very little time to implement. Bob was then informed that no it wouldn’t be a quick fix and he should return home because they would have to take off the bumper in order to replace the headlight.

What? Now this seems like a major technological faux pas. Why would you create a car where a relatively simple task like changing a headlamp requires the removal of a bumper? Particularly when the cars of yesteryear had already mastered this particular design. Why would you make something that was so easy to do in the 20th Century so difficult to do in the 21st Century? The technician, of course, didn’t design the car so, of course, Bob left the car and waited for his call.

And waited and waited and waited. It was mid-afternoon and Bob was getting concerned about the delay. He, called the technician to check on the delay. The mechanic informed him that the car wouldn’t be available until late afternoon at the earliest. Indeed the car still hadn’t been worked on. A headlight. We agreed to pick it up the next day.

The good news was the headlight was under warranty and we didn’t have to pay but this seems like a lot of hassle to replace something so basic as a headlight.