In November 2009 I started a journal to help myself deal with yet another car problem. Since then, I have added other writings to the journal and tried to make it a more full compendium of my digital journaling.
But it started with a car problem. Not just any car problem, but, at the time, the latest in a long line of car problems that was slowly squeezing my sanity. Hell, re-read some of these blog posts and see how often the car is the subject of any particular entry. That damned Saturn stole a lot of my life over the last 13 years.
Last weekend, we were trying to have a family-fun weekend. Throughout the day, I became increasingly aware of the tires making noises. Now, I had noticed the tires squealing when turning corners for a couple of weeks, but I chalked it up to that weird asphalt that makes tires squeak. Besides, the car was on a DNR and only needed to make it six more months. As long as it didn’t get worse, I was OK.
Well, Saturday it got worse. Much worse.
So bad, that by the time we were coming home from Antonio’s I thought some parts of the front suspension had broken while driving down Smith Rd. The steering wheel was real spongy and unresponsive (not to mention the steering wheel was really crooked – I knew I probably needed an alignment – but, the DNR thing made me think I could make it a few more months) Once we got on smoother road – the steering didn’t seem so bad – but the tires had started squealing even when I wasn’t turning. To me, it sounded like the sound of a tire being dragged out of alignment and skidding instead of rolling.
By the time we got home, even Carrie was a mess. We’ve only got a couple of hundred dollars on the Firestone card, and that has to go to fixing Ashley’s car. We simply could not afford to dump more money into this car this close to getting rid of it.
It was Saturday night, the week before our birthday weekend, and we sat there in this funk that can only be brought on by knowing that the car was going to ruin yet another birthday (birthdays and Xmas, every year, are when the car likes to fuck with us) and there wasn’t a damn thing we could do about it until at least Monday. Not to mention – I had to figure out how to get to work on Monday.
At one point, Carrie said – “start looking at dealerships, I would rather pay $300 car payments than to put one more dollar into that fucking car”. While I agreed, I knew that no place would be open on Sunday and even so, we hadn’t looked anywhere, our credit was shit and there was no way we’d get into another car by Monday, so I could go to work.
Sunday morning I went across the street to buy a paper and looked through the ads. Wow. How shitty. I thought there would be a ton of ads. Nope. Two pages of dealerships advertising their Labor Day sales (next weekend).
We decided to look at the Halleen Kia dealership down the street from us. They were local and open on Sunday. There wasn’t much hope, but it was all we had. Now we just had to kill two hours until they opened.
Finally, I mentioned to Carrie that maybe we should take the Saturn up to Firestone of North Olmsted. I didn’t have much faith in getting results at a dealership with no down payment, shit credit and an air of desperation. Firestone was open Sunday – and at this point I need a car to get to work tomorrow.
We get there and tell the guy the whole “DNR story”. Don’t fix anything you don’t have to. I’m getting rid of the car in six months. I just need it to be safe. Blah blah blah.
A bit later, he comes out and asks me to follow him back to the garage. Oh, shit.
Carrie and I get under the raised car as he points to the undercarriage frame by the front passenger side. Dirty, more that a bit rusty but nothing special. Then he points to the same area on the driver’s side. Holy shit. Rust everywhere. The frame is buckling under the axle and there’s a hole I can see the axle through.
He tells us, “If you’re going to get rid of this car, I would do it now. I can’t align this vehicle. It would be unethical to do it – it wouldn’t stay aligned after you left the parking lot.” I look at Carrie and she looks at me. He continues, “I guess you could get a body shop to weld a piece of sheet metal to the frame there, but then you’d still need the alignment, and you’re looking at several hundred dollars. If you’re going to get rid of it anyway…” he trailed off.
I knew the rest. The car was not dead yet – but it was officially on its deathbed. He recommended we stay local and don’t take the car on the highway. “If that frame gives out, it could be real dangerous.” The bright side? He didn’t charge us. Just apologized and wished us luck.
Well, Kia was our only hope, now.
Amazingly, not only were we not laughed off the lot, but we were able to turn down the first car they offered and look at a slightly newer car with full warranty. Payments were not out of line with what we had planned, and they would give us $500 for the Saturn. (I had originally hoped to get $1000 trade-in for the Saturn, but after that morning, I had lost all hope for my trade-in to be worth anything).
Long story short – by closing time, we drove a 2012 Kia Soul off the lot.
It’s got 43K miles on it and has the balance of the 10 year, 100,000-mile warranty.
The only downside is that now I have to tell my father that I bought a foreign car.
I’ll admit that when I first heard of the Soul, I liked it (before I knew who made them) and didn’t really care what kind of car I bought (we hadn’t started looking yet, and I didn’t have my heart set on anything).
But with the situation being what it was, I am amazed that things went so smoothly. I am pleased that we got into a car with no down payment on a Sunday before I had to go to work. On a different day, I hope things would have went as smoothly at a Chevy dealership. But there ya go.
At this point, I know I’m supposed to think “Well, as bad as the Saturn was, it got me through the last 13 years, and it really wasn’t all that bad”. Well, fuck that shit. I hated that car. It was that bad. I’m glad it’s gone. Good riddance.