neadods: (Default)
I am exhausted. All I ask of life right now is to sleep for a week; what I'm going to get is to have to cram a week's worth of things to do into the next day and a half because I've been too distracted with the car stuff to deal with it.

As for said car stuff, buying an automobile over state lines with a nonfunctioning current car is a nightmare. Just gotta say that. Maybe Eddie II will be traded in *before* major pieces of machinery fail. Maybe. Still, I'm working through the crap as fast as possible. The Saturn dealer wouldn't give me anything on the old Eddie on account of its negative blue book value and my not buying a replacement there, but did concede that it could stay on their lot for pickup by a charity without storage fees if I contacted them right away. I called the charity right in front of him and left them with copies of the title signed over to it. (They want me to mail the title to them. This makes me nervous, but there's a FedEx place close to work according to the Internet. I'm going there after work.)

This just leaves me needing to take the new car through a state inspection and waiting for the title to come in the mail from PA; then I take inspection cert & title to the DMV and slap my old plates on it, creating Eddie II. (The name comes from the plate, y'see.) I'll schedule the inspection for next week.

Tuesday night I looked at my parent's dealership online, picked 5 cars to look at, and printed their carfax reports. Yesterday my parents picked me up and drove me there, where I test drove cars #1 & 2 on the list and looked at 3. In the long run, I went with my initial first choice; the Outback has more space, but the Forester is zippier.

Eddie II is a 2001 Forester all the car babble under cut. )

Only thing is, I was so busy playing with the CD and tape players - whee, I can load 'em both and switch between 'em! - that I didn't realize until I got in today that Jimmy Doohan had died and that London had been bombed again. I think I need to program a news channel into my radio setup and hit it every hour or so.

Had I known about this, I could have gotten a new bumper sticker at Shore Leave; I'll wait until Bouchercon now. But I have my Muppet Laps and Hogwarts parking passes up, that's something.

Anybody wanna guess what Dr. Demento song has been stuck in my head since this morning?
neadods: (contemplative)
(Relax, Eddie's a car.)

There's a Candorville cartoon of a couple looking out over the city at night. The man is frowning, thinking, "Whenever I save a little money, God sends an emergency to take it away." The woman has a slight smile and is thinking "Whenever an emergency comes up, God makes sure I have enough money to handle it."

I'm thinking of this because I do have money to handle the latest emergency (yay!)... but I have to take it out of my vacation fund (BOO!) I have terminal car trouble (boo!) but it didn't happen until after Shore Leave and even Harry Potter night (YAY!)

Long story short: Eddie's automatic transition was jerking between gears yesterday, and the "Service Engine Soon" light came on. Since it was otherwise driving, I figured I could coax it the 30 miles to Mr. Tire this morning.

...Until Eddie wouldn't back out of the garage. No reverse gear at all. It would still go forward, though, so I cautiously drove it to the dealership, my heart stopping along with the wheels at every light. Fortunately, I got there in one piece.

Unfortunately, they told me that the transmission needs to be rebuilt ($1,250), the transmission fluid needs to be flushed and replaced ($125), and oh, by the way, it's still leaking oil (no quote).

Since Eddie's 8 years old and has 94,000 miles on it, there is just no way I'm putting another grand into it. Not after the major repairs of December and March. Even if I did, the brutal truth is that I just would not trust that car to take me to Canada in 5 weeks.

So, it's car-huntin' season. I'm thinking Subaru this time. If I plunder my vacation money, add my savings to the reimbursement for Shore Leave, and use up the last of my bonus, I can put down a not-overly shabby downpayment, plus I went ahead and got a loan approval from the credit union.

In the meantime, the rental agency was out of cars, so I'm driving a 6-seater minivan... which actually handles better than Eddie did. I'm so terrified of it that I will consider it a personal victory if I don't wet the seat.

ETA My parents were right, there is much more of a selection up where they are than where I am. It means I have to deal with the inspection and assorted other PITA things which will raise the price in $ and hassle, but it also means I can get a better deal in the first place.

I am seriously considering going up tomorrow. It will mean lost work, but it will also get this business over ASAP.

Profile

neadods: (Default)
neadods

February 2023

S M T W T F S
   1234
567891011
121314 15161718
19202122232425
262728    

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 29th, 2025 10:25 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios