My Car: Should It Stay Or Should It Go?
Over the last three weeks, I’ve had a battle with my car and getting it registered. The first two installments/blog entries are at the following links: Part 1 and Part 2.
I spent the weekend deciding if I should keep the car and pay the dealer an obscene amount of money to allow it to pass emissions or trade the damn thing in for something newer and less susceptible to an annual lighting of the “Service Engine Soon” alert.
The Final Verdict
I won’t go into detail about all of the new cars I saw on the road and the drivers with the big smiles or getting behind the old beater cars that pollute the air, while sporting current year registration tags. Nope. In the end, my final decision was to give my vehicle one more year and a brand-new catalytic converter.
In the stern talk I had with my car, I warned it that if the light goes off again next year, it’s splitsville and to look forward to having a new owner. I can’t keep pumping all of this money into a car [so far, just over $1,000 in the last month] when there is really nothing wrong with it. It’s too much frustration to deal with.
So for the next 8 months, I live with this paid-off car that runs great but pisses me off once a year. Only time will tell if it heard a single word I said to it.
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You could teach your car a lesson by driving it off a cliff after you get the converter installed.
But be sure to jump out first.
And it might be a good idea to make sure you’re not seat-buckled in before you take off.
OMG… that’s a great idea. But I may wait until I at least have the converter paid off on my now-completely-full credit card.
And thanks for the seat belt warning. I will make sure it’s unlatched first.
You got insurance, yo? Leave it out and I’ll have Vinnie and Paulie make it uh…dissapear.
If it does listen, let me know what you said. Or, better yet, can you come out here and talk to both our cars?
hilly Let me get my Sirius radio out of the car first then your “pals” can have at it.
kapgar I told it that the 1980 Buick it follows in the morning has current registration tags. It seemed to shudder after I said that.
The light is off now, but it needs to stay off so I can get it back over to Firestone to pass the emissions test. We are down the home stretch on this, but still haven’t rounded home plate yet.
LOL Sounds a lot like my mom’s car. It likes to drive us crazy by turning all the lights on inside… when we shut the car off.
Thanks for dropping my blog!
My poor 97 Intrepid. I dunno what’s up with the interior lights, but the new battery fixed the check engine light right up. $158 out the door! BTW, if you didn’t tell your car off in Japanese, you’re in big trouble mister.
Sadly, it was in English. Should I re-schedule the talk after I translate my speech into Japanese? 😉
You need to move to Florida. No emissions tests or safety inspections.
Wow.. no shit. That’s pretty cool. If this damn light goes off in January, I’ll may consider a move to the Sunshine state, to enjoy the sun and to avoid going fucking crazy.
I’m embarrassed to say how long it took me to realize you were pointing at your car hood. I thought it was a bathtub at first, then some kind of futuristic pod where you get in and go into a statis field, then I thought maybe you were looking down a long well of nothingness.
I enjoyed the ride. thanx.
Oh yeah.. now that I’ve read your take/view, I could see that the reflection from the fence makes it out to be a tub-like figure. Interesting how many views a photo can show.