TLDR: For reasons that will become clear, I was able to find my wife a car that satisfied all her Wireless EMF Free dreams. Not by getting her a new vehicle, but by searching out a car with every single safety and performance feature you can buy today, but without the wireless overload. And thanks to a really great guy from Jersey, that meant buying her an old car. That was also new. ish.
A few years ago, August started telling me she wished she had a car that had no EMF. It was probably my fault. Actually—I know it was my fault.
I HAD to have this Hummer EV, which is an awesome car. Any man would love this car. Your reptilian brain just wants it. Now, before you start hating, I completely understand that there is absolutely no excuse for this car. No one really needs a 0-60 in 3.3 seconds, 9,000 pound box of batteries. This vehicle is no one’s idea of eco-friendly. It has enough battery power for three regular EV’s. But on the other hand, see below.
I mean, come on! Look at that smile—just irresistible! Every man needs to compensate a little bit from time to time and this certainly isn’t the first time for me.
Yes, there are plenty of reasons to hate on the Hummer. But for the purposes of this story, let's focus on one: It is an EMF BOMB. There is every imaginable source of man-made radiation in it, with the possible exception of an X-Ray machine: OnStar Satellite, WiFi, Cellular Bluetooth and 18 cameras and sensors that make her meters go wild. As soon as we realized this and I began to feel guilty, I started trying to turn stuff off. This strategy has worked for me all over the world. I have been able to disarm pretty much every hotel and rental car and AirBNB we have come across. But in the Hummer, I met my McGyver match. The only thing I could really easily turn off was OnStar, by pulling a fuse. (If not just for EMF, everyone with OnStar should unplug it just the same-it's stalking you.)
IMPORTANT NOTE: A lot of people online say that they would NEVER buy an electric vehicle because of EMFs. But actually we have been testing EV's for about four years and generally speaking, the electric and magnetic EMFs in electric cars are WAY, WAY LOWER than regular internal combustion engine vehicles. I think it’s because electric cars are DC, direct current, not AC. There’s no alternator to create electric EMF.
Man-made EMFs are what we should be concerned with as a Tech Toxin primarily, and practically all new cars are awash in them-electric or not. We are working on a video on this that is coming soon. Bottom line: Don't be afraid of EV's.
As with most EV's, the brains of the machine are located up in the body behind the left rear wheel. I was able to find out that is where all the other modules are. But when I asked the dealer if a way to open up the area and just unplug some things, it was a very hard NO. Like NO WAY. August does not go down easily when it comes to EMF protection, so found me the actual 500 page Hummer service manual. I looked up changing the battery on the bluetooth, which I thought would get me in the neighborhood, where I could disconnect a few wires and be a hero. But no. The step by step instructions started with this one: Remove the driver's seat! Seriously. And it went on for 10 actual pages. By the time you got to the bluetooth battery, you had removed most of the insides of the truck, including the front and back seats, most of the interior panels on the left side of the car as well as the whole cargo area. I did some quick math and estimated it would take me roughly the rest of my life to accomplish this.
And that is the moment I realized that August really did need a new car.
• The requirements were pretty rigid: As her husband, I wanted her in something safe, that has all the stability controls and other state of the art safe driving features that any new would vehicle would have. Also, and I know this important, I wanted her to feel good driving it. The car would have to fit her dazzling personality, be comfortable and fun.
• But I also realized it had to be an older vehicle. No new car that I could find would meet all those specifications, because the EMF emitters couldn't be turned off these days. It must be because most people haven't read the research and can't feel the EMFs like August does.
• That is the main thing. To do this well, you'll need to look for a not-new car that has all the state of the art stuff, fits your style and personality and is safe.
• How do you find that? Well, historically cars were not chock full of EMF until bluetooth started appearing about 2010. So that is the era I started to focus on. And by 2018, the EMF access party had really started. If the average driver in the U.S. drives 15,000 miles a year, then a 15 year old car might have up to 225,000 miles on it. Which, unless it's a diesel truck, means lots of repairs are ahead. And it's probably not going to smell great either!
• That was when I realized I need a unicorn: A car from that era with almost no miles on it. But the good news is that it didn't have to be in my neighborhood. It could be anywhere in America. Everyday, thousands of trucks are shipping private cars all over the country and the pricing is very competitive. And every day, low mileage unicorns pop up. You just have to be patient.
• But if you randomly search around for ANY extremely low mileage car, from Facebook Marketplace, to eBay to Cars.com, etc., you will become very frustrated. My advice is to focus on one or two actual makes, models and years that you think fit the bill and then set up notifications so that when one of THOSE pop up online, you know about it.
• I decided to focus on a European car because they were ahead of game in terms of safety and features back then. Or maybe I’m a car snob, justifying getting a sports car? That could be. I did research and found that the first generation Porsche Panameras were produced from 2010 to 2013. Four doors, excellent safety ratings, very sporty looking and driving. They evolved and picked up more electronics in 2014 again in 2018 and that is when wireless was completely integrated. So I focused on a 2010-2013 Panamera. I wanted to make sure that if a car did have bluetooth, it was easily turned off and didn't constantly bug you to turn it back on! And because I couldn’t picture myself handing my wife the keys to a dumpy, worn out car with 150,000 miles that would break down continually, I decided this car would also have as close to zero miles as possible.
• In my experience, the best place to look for something like this is a site/app called Bring A Trailer. If you're a car person, this is a site that can become dangerously addictive. People who post their vehicles on BAT generally think they're selling something special. But it's not all Ferraris. There are fire trucks, and VW's and lots of Mustangs and McLarens. I just saw a 1979 Lincoln with 97 miles! And the platform generally writes the listings for the sellers, so the story telling is excellent. I set up notifications for the Panamera--and I also looked for sellers on the platform who seemed to specialize in low mileage cars. And there are just crazy examples on there. From simple affordable cars to super cars, many with unexplainably low miles. It's as if people who bought them just left them in the garage for a few decades.
• The real hero of today’s story is a guy from Neptune, New Jersey named Michael Graubart. Michael is the man. He has built a reputation on Bring A Trailer for coming up with insanely low mileage, previously owned vehicles. Michael's Motor Cars, is near Ashbury Park for you Springsteen fans. Michael says the cars come to him, but where have they been hiding all these years? His social media is a must watch. The not so subtle slogan is The Low Mile Kings. So I also set a notification for every time he posted a vehicle on Bring A Trailer.
• The first Panamera I found was not at Michaels; it was a 2010 with 14,000 miles. Which is awesome. Less than 1,000 miles a year. And with CarFax, you can look and see how many miles, what kind of service was performed and whether there were any accidents. This car looked pristine. But it got away before I could even bid. This will happen to you. Be patient. But I'm glad it did, because a few weeks later, this came up:
• I’ve never gotten or even wanted a silver car, but in person the paint on this Porsche is like nothing I’ve seen. I kept going back to the pictures of the odometer in the listing. Yep-that’s 3,900 miles on a 2011. It literally looked like it had never been in a rain storm, never spent a night outside. So I decided this was it. I did have to be kind of aggressive at the end there, when a couple of guys thought they were going to snag it at the last second. But I actually said in the comments, "This is for my wife, it's our anniversary and I'm not going to lose." That seemed to work. Four days later, a truck dropped it off at our house.
• This car really IS new. It looks like no one even SAT in it frankly. I took it to a dealer and all the service technicians marveled at it. They suggested changing the fluid in the brakes and transmission. And I put a new battery in it. And I wipe it down in the garage most nights.
• Financials. Today the average new car in America costs over $55,000.00. That is exactly what we paid for this car. That is probably twice what a similar car with normal mileage would cost. Yes, it's over 14 years old, but for the average cost of a nice new Hyundai Santa Fe or a well equipped Honda Accord, August got something pretty special. The original sticker on the car is $107,000, which in today's dollars equals $155,000. So I really believe we got an essentially new car, that is super safe and fun--AND MOST IMPORTANTLY EMF FREE--for 1/3 of what a new one would cost. (e.g. Porsche is still using the same motor that's in this one. There have been cosmetic changes, but it's still the same car.) Also, you can easily finance a used car at your bank or credit union.
• Other. I'm probably going to purchase an after-market warranty. Major repairs can be really expensive on cars like this. And also, I've told August she can't drive it in the rain. It's too pretty! And if it’s more than 20 miles one way, can you take the Hummer baby?
So that is the story of August's New, Old, EMF Free Car. We’ve been married a long time and she has never been so excited about getting a car. For me, it was a fun process and I will definitely be doing it again. Unless there's a new car with no EMF. That might be easier.
Here's August's review of her New, Old Car including some startling EMF readings.
PS—There’s actually another chapter to this story. Stay tuned for that!
Hal
