Anyway, I'm pretty sure I have some sort of evil cloud hanging over me when it comes to vehicles. I've had a lot of car problems in the past. My first car was a 1995 Jeep Cherokee Laredo. It was the family vehicle that got passed down to me when I got my license. This car was quirky. By 2001, you could take the keys out of the ignition...while driving! We used to do this on the highway and wave them to passing cars and really freak people out. By the summer of 2002, the AC went but I had power windows so I toughed it out. When the heat finally went during the winter of my freshman year of college, we knew we had to do something.
My parents helped me buy a red 1997 Chevrolet Cavalier. I thought it was so badass. It was a coupe.
Then, one bright sunny day in the summer before my senior year of college, I was driving back to my apartment from the mall. I don't know what happened (and I'm pretty sure to this day my parents think I'm lying) but the next thing I knew I was waking up in a LOT of pain in the driver's seat. The car in front of me - an Audi - had slowed to turn and apparently I did not. I plowed into the back of him going ~40mph. His car had some dents and scratches. Mine was totaled. The airbag deployed and since my legs are so short and I sit so close to the steering wheel, the airbag burned all the skin off my chin and part of my forearm. My sunroof shattered into the car but fortunately I was not cut. I called 911 and an ambulance came that I refused to ride in. I think one or both of my parents came and brought me to my apartment, where they proceeded to yell at me.
Insurance covered the cost of the car, so naturally I got a 1999 Chevrolet Cavalier despite learning firsthand that Cavaliers really are tin cans. It was also a coupe, but was white and looked a little more sporty. Her name was "Callie."
Over Thanksgiving weekend in 2005, my then-boyfriend and I were going somewhere on the highway. I forget. Fortunately he was driving because all of a sudden something felt very wrong and he lost control of the car. He maneuvered us over to the breakdown lane where we discovered the wheel had broken. Or the axle, or something. My dad had taken my car somewhere the previous week for I think a tire rotation, and apparently the mechanic did not screw the lugnuts back on tight. Brian made the grave mistake of blaming my dad when he came to rescue us, and any iota of warmth my dad had come to feel for him in the previous four years of us dating was quickly out of the window.
I'm less than two minutes from the woman's house when I hear this horribly loud thunk and my car stops. It was cold, my dad had to come rescue me (story of my life) and take me to pick up Rags. Actually, I drove him back to work and then borrowed his huge Suburban to go pick up Rags. I remember this distinctly because I had a little carrier for him that he did not like, and so my career as a pushover began when he started crying and I pulled over to free him. I took him to Petco (no one told me you can't take 8-week-old puppies, who are not fully vaccinated, to a pet store) and he threw up all over a toy, so I was forced to buy it. And we've been the happiest little family ever since.
My Cavalier, not so much. I had blown the engine by not checking the oil. It was bone dry. It was a very expensive repair.
The Cavalier caused me problems in Florida. It managed to get five of us to and from Jacksonville for the 2007 Florida-Georgia game, including the parking lot called I-10. Traffic was so bad that everyone was getting out of their cars to set up tailgates. We set up our chairs, unloaded the cooler, and tossed a football around for a few hours.
But "Callie" was not pleased. She was in the shop on a regular basis. I was planning to drive home for a couple weeks while my then-boyfriend was in Spain and all my friends were interning around the country while I was stuck interning in Gainesville. The AC went, and I needed all new brakes, so my parents told me to repair the bare minimum and get myself and Rags safely home. We did, with the windows down from Florida to Atlanta to the Blue Ridge Mountains and then to Massachusetts. It was brutal. Once I got home, my dad took the Cavalier off my hands (and still drives it today) and I got a 1999 Nissan Maxima.
The Maxima was the luxury edition, but it was also 9 years old. I forget where the problems began, but I had a rusted out brake line, all sorts of leaks, brake problems. I have no good pictures of it, but this one accurately depicts my experiences with "Maggie."
When my dad came to stay with me for a week in November 2011, he took it and got a bunch of repairs. A month later, I realized how much money this car was sucking out of me and could die at any moment, and went and took out a car loan on a 2003 Toyota Corolla.
I LOVE my Corolla. I've had no problems aside from a weird defect where when the temperature outside falls below 20, the headlights turn themselves on, draining the battery. It took a while to figure out what was happening and resulted in a new (unnecessary) battery and several AAA calls, but then I found this Technical Service Bulletin. Instead of spending a bunch of money for something that was only going to happen a few times a year, we figured out a workaround - set the high beams on when turning off the car. The high beams don't actually stay on once the car is off, but since they are switched to the on position, the headlights wouldn't turn themselves on when it got cold. This works, although I have forgotten about it till now and I'm sure I will learn the hard way the first time it gets really cold next year.
Then, this past Saturday, I was going to scout out some tag sales (yard or garage sales for you non-New Englanders) to find myself a dresser for my soon-to-be-new Boston apartment. My car hesitated when I started it. I called my Dad outside to see if he thought it was serious. He waddled out, still in a lot of pain from Friday's hernia surgery, and said it was probably wet from the 3" of rain we'd have during the week. Makes sense. My car once stalled when I drove quickly through a big puddle that splashed onto my hood so clearly she is delicate.
I still had a bad feeling about my car, so when I went to tag sales around town, I left my car running the whole time. It was probably 45 minutes. Then I forgot and parked at Home Depot and JoAnn Fabrics while I stocked up on bridal shower supplies. When I went out to my car, it was totally dead. Would not even turn over, but I had lights and radio and even enough juice to charge my phone and call my still-recovering dad. He came down, we tried unsuccessfully to jump the battery, tested it and were told it was fine, had the AAA man knock it with a huge pipe while I pulled a muscle turning the key back and forth, and finally conceded it was a bad starter.
$360 later...good as new. Except that was supposed to go toward my new wardrobe for work. And the bridal shower. And a deposit on an apartment. I almost threw up when I heard the total. On that note, I've decided to teach myself (or rather, ask my dad when he's feeling better) how to change my own oil. More on that experience later.
No comments:
Post a Comment