When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in the year 49B.C., thus igniting the Roman civil war, he famously declared, “Ia acta est” latin for “the die has been cast.” It is in the same breadth that i had crossed the point of no return with the “fielder ya mataa kwa boot” since it was one of the best experiences I had had with a sedan in a long time. I wasn’t keen on opting for any other car to drive up country (yet again) for the new year festivities. To my dismay however, the owner regrettably informed me that the fielder had been hired out to a client on the very same day I had brought it back for a staggering 17 days (Yet we complain of an ailing economy). I was heart broken. I couldn’t believe that I had narrowly missed another escapade with that lovely car.
He however availed to me a newer model fielder, registration KCM, and assured me it was just as good as the older fielder. I had no choice but to take the car since the only other available options were a passo, a Nissan march and a demio, none of which would have endured the kind of abuse I subjected the “fielder ya mataa” to without throwing in the towel and bluntly refusing to respond to input. It is also, after all, in human nature to take the path of least resistance, to never tread too far off the beaten path unless we absolutely have to.This newer fielder also lacked a decent music system with just the ugly stock system in place, the kind with the unsightly and ancient green screens that stir bitter memories of my calculator screen back in high school as i struggled to find the value of X and my maths teacher harshly remarking, “you do not even know what you don’t know”. I inquired as to why his cars had no decent music systems but he simply looked at me, laughed and feigned indifference. I found that reaction rather odd but i let the issue slide. The stock system would have been just as useless as the unreadable screen in the older fielder were it not for the availability of an aux port which allowed me to at least plug in my aux cord and play the music on my phone. My music tastes are actually far more refined than that vulgar ghetto rant that passes for music, which a fellow here alluded to on my previous post.
The rest of the interior was quite bland with cheap-feeling plastic everywhere. Not even a single chrome strip for aesthetics purposes. They probably stopped short of using a plastic Toyota logo on the steering wheel as well.They might as well have installed hand-operated wind-down levers for the windows in stead of the power units in the spirit of upholding the most ugly interior. Toyota’s designers seemed to have been quite lazy when designing this model since even the gear selector surround and interior door unlock handles were plastic unlike the chrome units on the older fielder. Hell, even my dad’s 2002 fielder has a dash of chrome here and there.The designers of the older fielder “ya mataa” were probably summarily fired at some point during the global economic meltdown of 2008 and replaced with incompetent nincompoops. The seats on the other hand were concealed in fake leather covers, the kind that hawkers shove in your face in traffic on Thika road claiming it’s original leather from the lowlands of Thailand but they reasonably comfortable. The entire vehicle felt cheap and poorly made but that was probably the trade-off for rock-hard reliability and hardiness. It was, after all, built to outlive one’s grand kids rather than to ferry the royal family to and from Buckingham castle.
I filled the tank with premium and set off for the countryside on the 31st. This time round I was all alone. I decided against tagging along a random wench since Dakota Fanning would probably not have been amused if she ever found out that I went behind her back. I needed to be faithful to her for once. Also i would have had to spend money on the girl in question which is something that irks me. My falling out with Patricia was probably a sign that the gods were not happy with my decision to ditch the gorgeous (disregard Nawaz Khan) Dakota Fanning and were thus punishing me in return by subjecting any other relationships I had to turmoil and mishaps.
The car handled slightly better than the fielder ya mataa but felt a tad slower in comparison. The brakes also had a much longer travel distance before full braking power was unleashed. One had to literally floor the brake pedal to bring the vehicle to a halt.They faired well on the beaten path but were by no means ideal for tailgating a rowdy Vitz driver with full lights on because he was conveniently doing 40KPH on the fast lane. You probably would not be able to stop in time if the Vitz driver decided to hand you a taste of your own medicine and brake-checked you. off the beaten path however, the brakes vibrated erratically moreso downhill and at some point it felt like they would fail. This was terrifying since it happened when the brakes were wet from rain or after wading through ankle-deep puddles on the dirt road. At this point they also produced a deep creaking sound like an old cupboard door. Imagine driving down a steep, muddy hill and the brakes vibrating violently with the pedal pushing your foot up and producing a horrible noise. That was exactly what happened and it was incredibly terrifying.
However it also made short of work of the 30° incline near the village albeit with a slight loss of traction as the front wheels hurled debris in the air in an effort to hold onto solid ground. I however had to desperately floor the throttle in an effort to keep the car moving since it felt as though it would lose power and send me plunging back over the cliff and into oblivion. The gear selector had an unusual order; P, R, N, D-S, B so i was in “D” all the way since i couldn’t quite figure out the purpose of “B” (A quick google search yielded conflicting results.) The fielder ya mataa takes the cake here since it fared much better.
On the next day, in the wee hours of the morning at around 4.30am, after treating some village youth to a night of heavy drinking at a nearby town to usher in the new year, we left for the village after the waitress bluntly refused to sell any more alcohol to us citing the lapsing of her working hours. It had rained rather heavily but it had stopped hours earlier so i was confident we would make it past the muddy sections but this is where the newer fielder fell short. It was on a roughly 90-meter long winding incline where even the most advanced of AWD systems would struggle without proper off-road rubber given just how slippery this stretch was when it rained. “The fielder ya mataa” however had aced the challenge earlier after a similar night of heavy rain and I expected no less from this newer fielder.
With myself and the four other drunk clowns on board, I battled the incline with the pedal to the metal and the tacho just shy of the red line (a wrong move I later learned). The engine sound was terrible as it groaned and moaned as though it would blow a cylinder head at any moment. It however slowly scaled the incline as the tyres spun violently and produced a thick smoke. Halfway up the incline after taking the first turn, my headlights illuminated on my cousin’s wish which seemed to have gotten bogged down in a ditch over right shoulder while just meters shy of completing the hill. This wish, by the way, was so good that it could cause a lactose-intolerant fellow (such as myself) to throw caution to the wind and fill myself with copious amounts of fresh milk. It deserves a separate review on a later date.
Although the right side wheels of the wish were bogged down in the ditch, the rest of the car was on the road. It was a very narrow road and the wish hadn’t left much room for me to pass but it was adequate as long as the damn car moved in a straight line rather than swing sideways as it was doing. I had to move dangerously close to the left ditch to avoid ramming into the wish if the car decided to swing sideways. Through sheer talent and impeccable helmsmanship, I managed to get the fielder well past the wish, in a relatively straight line, without denting the wish’s paint-job and I made it a few meters past the hill.
I was about to stop in the middle of the road, when I was content that i was a safe distance from the hill, to go check on my cousin but I momentarily ran out of talent and the car skidded violently as I struggled to prevent it from getting bogged down in the right ditch but it was too late. The car skidded and landed in the ditch and I cursed repeatedly. I attempted to ease it out of the ditch but every time it gripped the road, it lost traction and skidded back in while hurling red mud all over the body and windows. Thanks but no thanks road tyres. After a lot of back and forth, wasted fuel and smoking tyres, I gave up and decided to let my passengers alight and give the car a slight push.
The gentlemen were too drunk in spite of their willingness to help. One tried to push the car, slipped and fell onto the muddy ground and as the others tried to help up the fallen fellow, they too slipped and fell in a pile on top of each other. It was comedy gold. Hilarious yet sad. It was a bit like what popular street parlance describes as “Parte after parte.” Unfortunately my phone had conveniently run out of charge and I couldn’t record the hilarious moment and unsurprisingly, the despotic regime didn’t see it fit to include our humble village in the last mile project of electricity connections so we were limited to solar for charging purposes. Seeing however that their efforts were futile, I switched off the car and requested one of the drunk fellows to call for reinforcements from the village.
As he did, I decided to step out of the car to assess the situation and check on my drunk cousin but I suddenly slipped, fell and blacked out after slightly hitting my head on the door frame and for a moment I thought I saw Dakota Fanning stretching her hand out to me with a huge smile on her face. I stretched my hand out to meet hers only to regain consciousness and realize that it was a drunk Kamau trying to help me up from the muddy ground.
When our reinforcements arrived, progress was much better but the car still wouldn’t exit the ditch. I called for a brief breather as I stepped out to asses the situation while taking caution not to slip and fall yet again. After a few minutes of observing the mess, I devised a strategy. Two of the gentlemen would push on the front right quarter panel to prevent the car from skidding back into the ditch while the rest would provide much needed power by pushing from the rear. This strategy worked perfectly after a few tries and I was back on the road in no time. We then woke my drunk cousin who was fast asleep behind the wheel of the wish and employed the same strategy which again worked flawlessly before we proceeded to the village in a convoy.
During my return, the village people sensationally decided that I had siphoned off more than I gave and I was thus not handed any more potatoes or green peas for my return trip (or they may have gotten wind of my unbecoming behavior of auctioning these items since, as a bachelor, i didn’t really need them). Only a 5-litre bottle of milk was availed to me so the car was essentially empty on my way back. In total, the car consumed just over 4K of unleaded premium throughout the entire journey which was quite reasonable.
Forthwith, if anyone is considering purchasing this fielder model which I’m assuming is probably year 2008-2010, I would say, go for it, if only for it’s reliability but don’t expect the interior to bag any awards, It’s damn ugly with it’s plastic over-use. The exterior, however, is average and very Toyota like but I’m a fan of the rear LED lights which are a nice touch. This is a car best suited as an alternative to the heavily stereotyped probox in the murky taxi business or as a hardy commercial vehicle for delivering bread in the wee hours of the morning. For a good all-round family car, I would recommend (at the risk of being labelled a “brand worshipper”) the fielder ya “mataa kwa boot” any time. The interior is better-looking, it’s much more comfortable and handles abuse better. This however does not necessarily throw other brands under the bus, I know there are better alternatives out there but I can’t vouch for what I haven’t experienced without sounding biased.
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