Does your car need a name? The short answer is "yes."
Honk if you've heard this television commercial: "You owned a car for four years. You named it Brad. You loved Brad "
I have seen this commercial maybe 100 times. Try as I might, I do not love Brad.
In the TV spot, a millennial woman in a denim jacket tells us about Brad, a much-loved automobile that was carelessly totaled by its owner.
Never fear. Sadness over Brad's demise is short-lived, we are told. The owner ends up breaking into a "happy dance" after the insurance company replaces Brad with a newer model, thanks to a policy rider called "better car replacement coverage."
Mark KennedyView other columns by Mark Kennedy
This sounds like something the actuaries thought up at happy hour.
The subliminal message is clear: Name your car, over-insure it, and you might get a bonus.
Recently, I went used-car shopping for our soon-to-be-16-year-old son. I asked the previous owner of a 2009 RAV4 if the SUV had a nickname.
"Excuse me?" said the man, who was calling me back from Huntsville, Ala.
"A name," I repeated. "Did y'all call your RAV4 something before you traded it in?"
"No name," he said with a chuckle, although he subsequently referred to the Toyota several times affectionately as "the Rav."
If I could establish that he, or his wife, had bonded with the little Toyota by giving it a name, it would be an indicator of a good service history.
Several years ago, Nationwide insurance company commissioned a poll and discovered that about 25 percent of the respondents had a name for their car. More than one-third of 18- to 34-year-olds said they named their vehicle, the poll showed. Interestingly, women were more likely to name their cars than men.
When my wife and I first got married, she had a Ford Probe named Penelope. Later, we bought a Toyota Camry and named it Bernard, after our salesman at the Marietta, Ga., dealership where we bought the car. We now have a Barcelona Red Toyota Venza that I named Clifford, after the big red dog.
Normally, forming a sentimental attachment to an inanimate object is not a great idea. But with cars, it makes sense.
Why? Because naming cars has unintended benefits.
Here are three:
-Better service. People who name their cars are more likely to have them serviced regularly. It doesn't make sense that you would invest emotionally in a machine that you intend to abuse with infrequent oil changes.
Who starves a puppy?
-Longer life. Once you have established a first-name friendship with a car, it's harder to trade it in. Keeping a car an extra year or two is almost always prudent for personal finance.
-Convenience. Giving a car a name actually improves family communications. At least once a day, you'll get the question from kids: "Which car are we taking?"
If you can say Toby (the Toyota) or Susie (the Subaru), it conserves syllables and helps move things along.
As we move toward the era of self-driving cars, I fear that automobiles will eventually stop being objects of affection. Instead they may become more like appliances.
And who names their refrigerator, right?
If, for some reason, you do feel compelled to name your refrigerator, let me suggest Reggie.
And don't forget to change his filter.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.