Car Saga

Summer 2018

My Mom's old Buick was a real blessing. We inherited it when our van was on it's last leg and Emma was a new driver. It eased our purchase of the Kia and it gave Emma some independence and transportation to work. The silver Buick wasn't in great shape. Emma got to take it with her to college and she was quite fond of the old boy. It had some dents, tape on the tail light, and the driver window had to be duct taped shut. But it ran.

Until it stopped. The engine seized up as Emma was driving to the summer camp where she worked. I arranged a tow truck and got her to work. The engine had run out of oil and it was done. I became the taxi service for a few weeks while we searched for a new car. We looked at a few, but with a really small budget the pickings were limited. These were all private sales because dealerships don't bother with the low end late models. Most of our car hunting was done in the rain (we had record rain this summer) and it wasn't pleasant. We had a break in the rain when we checked out a Volkswagen. It was being sold by a guy who didn't speak English well but his 2 little boys helped out with some translating. It looked pretty good and test drove well. Emma was going to be buying this on her own and on our second visit she decided to buy it. It had tinted windows we knew needed to be fixed to pass inspection and a few other things but she went for it.

We brought it for inspection and came away with a list, she put some money into it as she was expecting and had budgeted for. There were a few small things (windshield, after market mirrors, and a tail light) left to fix in order to pass. On another rainy day she rear-ended her friend and messed up the front of her car and his rear bumper.  She did some more adulting and got acquainted with insurance. Luckily we have accident forgiveness and his car was covered.

This is were the honeymoon was over. She had a series of car repair appointments, attempted windshield fixes, hood latch debacales, and failed inspections. She got tow notices at her apartment, and got pulled over twice for expired tags.  She used the college shuttle, and walked to work most days.  This saga raged on as she also worked 5-6 shifts a week and managed a full course load. I helped her set up appointments for body work, she borrowed Jim's Xtera to get to work, and finally she got her radiator mount repaired and fender replaced. She decided to skip the paint to save some money. And it finally passed inspection in November. Next is registration and getting it legal.

She has been dreaming of other cars and the auto relationship is on rocky ground. I just hope she gets some good mileage out of this car after all of the trouble.