DS is 17. We enjoy a friendly, positive relationship. He passed his driving test and he has a car that we took a loan out for - we badly want him to be independent for reasons that belong in another thread.
Anyway, we buy him a tankful of petrol on our payday, and that’s it for the month. Payday is tomorrow. Jokingly, off he went for a drive, and we laughed at his obvious ploy to use a bit of petrol before we top the tank up for him.
He’s still fairly new to driving so I often check in with the 360 app. I did - he hadn’t just gone for a drive. He went to a (not particularly pleasant) friend’s house before then activating the 360 bubble which means we don’t now know where he is.
I should add that we’re relatively chill parents; he goes off to London with his mates, he drives around our home town ferrying friends around, we are happy for him to drink as long as it’s at someone’s home - as long as he keeps on top of his school work, we are all happy.
AIBU to be irritated that he has “gone for a drive” but headed right round to a friend’s house before activating the bubble to hide his location from us? Does this require some parenting along the lines of, “We didn’t buy you a car so you could go out in it and hide from us where you are”? He knows that we check when he’s out in the car so he’ll know we looked (preemptive warning to those who will say that we run the risk of him turning into a raging delinquent by letting him know that we checked up on him!)