Car karma... did I break a rear view mirror before I left or something?
I don't even really want to talk about all the car trouble I had, because it has taken up so much of my time already, but I feel like I should write it down so that one day, I can look back and laugh... or at least realize that what has seemed like unending bad luck and misfortune was really not that terrible in the grand scheme of life... or something positive like that, anyway. As I always say, there's no point in being pessimistic... it wouldn't work anyway!
Where to start? I suppose the start of all this trouble is that for some insane reason, I happily shelled out $1700 for that Mazda Familia without having it mechanically inspected. I suppose I was trying to save myself the extra $150 it would cost for a checkup and just hope for the best. But $1700, Sarah? Seriously? You threw that much money at something without getting professional advice on the decision? Stupid, stupid, stupid! I wouldn't buy a horse for that much without getting a second opinion, if not a pre-purchase exam by a qualified veterinarian, so why not a car?
The last thing I mentioned about the car was before I went to Pakiri, when there was a leak in the radiator hose and it was spraying coolant everywhere. I went to the dealer's car lot at 1pm and his receptionist said he wasn't there and wouldn't be back until 4 or 5. I asked her if I could use the phone to call him, and she said she wasn't allowed to let people use the phone. I asked her if she could call him for me, and she said no, she wasn't allowed. I stared quizzically at her and said something along the lines of... "You are a receptionist who cannot call the PERSON YOU WORK FOR on the COMPANY phone?!" She told me I could go and use a pay phone, but I stared at her with a raised eyebrow until she picked up the phone and called her himself, haha. But there was no answer! So I said I would wait. I went out to get a book to entertain myself, and while I was at the car, she came out and said she had called again and he had answered, and he said to go to the shop down the road and they would take care of it. The dealer owns a "panelbeaters" (autobody repair), and the two young guys there did the repair. At the time, I did not know that they weren't mechanics, since they had also originally done the oil change and a few other routine things before I got the car. It turns out they just do some basic mechanical things, but their primary occupation is restoration. They left the rattling sound undiagnosed, but I was told it should not be of much concern. Again, I didn't know that they weren't really qualified to be commenting on that at the time, and I was desperate to get out of Auckland, so I accepted that explanation. But what did I think was going to happen? That it would go away on its own??
The other problem that was becoming apparent was that the car was “gutless”; that is, it seemed to be lacking power. I could floor it and it was like driving a two ton truck... it merely crept forward. Then, it would rev quite high and hoof it into the next gear. In fact, it was so unresponsive that I hardly felt safe when pulling out onto a roadway, for fear that I would not get across or into the lane before traffic caught up with me! Thinking back to my test drive, I realize it was doing this then too, but it was not apparent then since I only drove it in town at low speeds and for a short stretch on the motorway. I'm not sure if the ticking sound was happening then, but it's possible that it was and I didn't notice it, or it got worse in the days after the sale.
I didn't drive anywhere while I was at Pakiri, but when I left and was headed towards Auckland again, I flip-flopped between thinking, “I should take the car back to the dealer to see what he thinks of these issues.” and “Eh, it's probably fine / it's my imagination / I don't want to know about problems that will cost me $ to fix (hah)” I eventually decided to stop in at a mechanic's and see if he could help me determine the severity of the situation. The one I ended up at was very kind, and said that while he could not diagnose the problems on the spot, they were extremely likely to be pre-existing conditions and I should take it back to the dealer. If he wouldn't help, the Consumer's Guarantee Act would - legislation that states that any product or service which is not fit for the purpose intended can be returned to the proprietor for a refund or to be fixed within a reasonable amount of time after purchase (yes, even used cars). He was quite peeved that the dealer had sold the car to me in this condition. Armed with this new knowledge, I tried to call the dealer's mobile, but a recording said, “This number is not permitted to receive calls”, which I later found out likely meant he had not paid his phone bill. I did get a hold of his receptionist at his office and she said I would have to wait until Monday to speak with him, as it was after 4 on a Friday at this point. I was in the lovely beach town of Orewa then, about 30km north of Auckland, and I figured this was not the worst place to be stuck for a weekend if that is how it had to be
I found a nice hostel and made some friends right away. The next day, two mechanically inclined fellows helped me look at the car more closely, and when we took the alternator belt off, the rattle stopped, so the hypothesis was that the bearing needed replacing. They couldn't help me with the power issue, but it was a start.
The hostel, “Pillows”.
The manager of the hostel told me he knew why I was having bad luck, and pointed to my necklace:
This is the necklace my lovely friend, also a Sarah (hi Sarah #2!) gave me. In fact, she gave it to me before my last trip, but my mum had beaten her to the punch and given me a QUADRUPLE good luck charm necklace that had a horseshoe, four leaf clover, wishbone, and heart. Sadly the chain broke in my last week of travel and the charm fell off somewhere. But that meant that Sarah's necklace got a turn as my travel charm, but what the manager pointed out is that the horse shoe is upside down, and therefore all of my luck was RUNNING OUT. Oh noes! In an entirely scientific experiment, I decided to remove it (sorry Sarah #2!) and replace it with...
This necklace, which another lovely friend (hi erincalenear!) gave me on my last trip (see, I'm very fair with my jewellery - wearing everything in the order it was given to me!). It's a pretty paua shell. :)
I didn't do a lot that weekend... I didn't want to drive too far in case the car exploded, but the hostel was right across from the beach, so I walked the length of that, and did drive to a nearby park to go for a hike.
Not the worst place to be stuck for a weekend. :)
Neat cobblestone effect on the rocks, entirely natural.
Of course I chose a hike that promised a waterfall viewing, but it was just a little one!
I came out of the forest and was met with a trail across this pasture.
After making my way up the grade, I was rewarded with an ocean view.
And sheep, of course! (they are never far)
On Monday, I headed to Auckland, but again the dealer was not available. The receptionist told me to take it down the panelbeaters again, though, and the nice young men there did the best they could to help me. They suggested the power problem could be remedied by new spark plugs, so I went out and bought those and they put them in. That made little if any difference, however. They agreed that the rattle may be from the alternator, and said they could get a replacement from the wreckers the next day. Meanwhile, the dealer showed up. He had previously said that any labour that the panelbeaters could do would be free of charge, but he wanted me to pay for the alternator. I told him I was dissatisfied with that because I believed it was a pre-existing condition. He said he wanted me to be happy and agreed to pay for it. Regarding the power in the car, he claimed that there was no problem - that was the way it was supposed to be, because it was only a 1500cc engine. That answer did not sit right with me, but I was more concerned with the ticking sound anyway, and thought it would be best to resolve that first and go from there. I was told to come back the next day for the alternator replacement. On the way back to the hostel though, I stopped in at a proper mechanic's for a second opinion on the power, and after a test drive, he not only said that it was not normal, but was able to diagnose it as a problem with the timing belt, which could cost between $200 and $350 to fix. He thought the ticking noise was either the alternator or the water pump, and agreed with the other mechanic that the dealer should be cooperative in helping me fix it. He kindly did not charge me for his time.
The next day, the panelbeaters swapped out the alternator, but unfortunately that did not fix the rattle. That pretty much took all afternoon, perhaps because they are not mechanics and had to figure things out as they went (well, one said that it was the other guy's first time doing it and he was supervising him... great).
The day after that, when I insisted to the dealer that the power was not normal, he came for a test drive with me. Even after that, he maintained that nothing was wrong, holding that I was expecting too much from the small engine. I maintain that my SCOOTER had more power than that car. Faced with the possibility of having to drop $350 on repairs plus still not having resolved the ticking sound, I used his assertion to my advantage and said that if he didn't think there was anything wrong with the car, he should have no problem trading me for something else on the lot. Ideally I would have just liked to get my money back, as the Consumer's Guarantee Act allows for (yes, even on used cars), BUT I had since found out that by writing “As is, where is” in tiny letters at the bottom of our contract, none of those rules applied to this transaction and I had no legal leg to stand on.
The only problem now was that I didn't know what vehicle I should trade for. If the dealer hid this many things about the Mazda, what was he hiding about his other cars? Would I just be trading for a new set of problems? I sought the advice of the mechanic who had helped me the other day, and he said he had to head over to the area the dealer was in to get some parts, and could stop in and help me sort the lemons from the... I'll say limes, because as it turned out, he wasn't really happy with ANYTHING on that lot. Everything had high kilometers (one had 400,000+ and the dealer still wanted $1500 I think!) or strange problems like no 5th gear. A Toyota Starlet we test drove was decent except it was burning oil. At this point I had abandoned hope of getting a car that fit my lifestyle (i.e., with fold-down seats so I could sleep in the back if I wanted) and just wanted something mechanically sound. By using a process of elimination, this left us with a 1991 Nissan Sentra. It too had high km's (262,000), but its engine was sound. However, it came with it's own quirks that all of the cars on the dealer's lot seemed to have a few of: the driver's side door cannot be manually locked from the inside when the door is open (it can be when it is closed, but once the door is open, it has be locked with the key from the outside). The passenger's side door cannot be unlocked with the key at all. And lastly, the boot (trunk) cannot be opened with the inside lever OR the key - I have to open it by pulling a STRING which is attached to the lever inside. Yeesh! Of course that means anyone walking by can open the boot, so I can't keep any valuables in there.
OF COURSE the dealer wasn't around to make the trade official at that time, so yet again I was told to come back the next day, which by this point was FRIDAY. I had wasted FIVE whole days with these clowns. Every morning I would check out of my hostel and tell the owners that I hoped I wouldn't see them again that night, but for four nights, I begrudgingly returned. I felt like Charlie in that 60's song about the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority in Boston), where they raised the fare while Charlie was on the train and he wasn't allowed off because he didn't have the extra fare:
Let me tell you the story
Of a man named Charlie
On a tragic and fateful day
He put ten cents in his pocket,
Kissed his wife and family
Went to ride on the MTA
Charlie handed in his dime
At the Kendall Square Station
And he changed for Jamaica Plain
When he got there the conductor told him,
"One more nickel."
Charlie could not get off that train.
Auckland to me was what the train was to Charlie... I felt like I would never get out of that city!
The mechanic had told me to bring the Sentra to his shop on Friday so he could have a closer look at it on the hoist before I officially committed to the trade. The battery had been flat for the test drive and subsequently when I went to take it to the mechanic's, so I had to jump start it both times using a battery pack the dealer had (I was told the battery would be replaced if I bought it, at least). I momentarily forgot that I had jump started it the second time when I saw that the fuel light was on - knowing my luck, I would run out on the way to the mechanic's, so I stopped to put $5 in (I didn't want to put in more in case I didn't end up trading for the car). But of course when I went to start it again, it wouldn't... duh. No one around me had jumper cables, but luckily there was a tire shop next door who also had some batteries, and the guy actually just held a battery against mine and that gave it enough juice to start.
Then it was off to the shop, where a different mechanic actually ended up assigned to the checkup. He found that the brake pads were quite worn, but this was not a surprise since the brakes were not very responsive during the test drive. $95 later, I had new brake pads... and the young mechanic's phone number, hahah! A couple hours later, while waiting for the panelbeaters to put in a different battery, reinstall my stereo from the Mazda (it took FOREVER), and fix the boot/trunk (it wouldn't close properly), I got a text asking me out for dinner. ;)
The panelbeater working on the boot latch.
Once everything was fixed up (as well as it could be, anyway), I returned to the car lot to do the paperwork. The dealer claimed this car, which was older and had twice as many kilometers as my Mazda, was worth $2000, so I had to pay an extra $300 to trade it for my $1700 Mazda. Add in the $95 brake pads and $75 to register it and I was nearly out another $500. I have had pangs of regret over this, because I am thinking I could have just got the Mazda fixed for that much, and it had power windows, central locking, air conditioning, and the fold down seats I love so. But I comfort myself by saying that there may have been more problems than just the timing belt and rattle. In fact, it's likely. There was also transmission oil leaking, so the whole tranny could have been on its last legs. Sadly someone else will probably be suckered into buying that car now, by that smooth talking evil dealer... I wish I could warn them.
Although I was determined to get out of Auckland that day, I decided to go out to dinner with the mechanic, because it was already early evening and I wouldn't have made it far anyway. Plus, I was hungry! He offered to pick me up, but since I'm a nomad, I didn't exactly have an address to give him... so instead I met him in a dark parking lot and got into his car so he could kidnap me (safety first!). He asked how everything had gone since I had seen him at the shop in the morning, and as I explained, I held my keys in my lap, but something was amiss... in slow motion, I lifted my keychain up and found... the car key was missing. The thin, cheap keyring from the dealer had bent and pulled apart sometime between when I locked my door and went I got in the mechanic's car. As he said... unbelievable, after all that had already happened! We returned to where my car was parked, thinking it had fallen off between vehicles, but we actually found it underneath my seat. After that, we had a nice dinner and conversation, but by then it was too late to get out of the city, so I ended up sleeping in my car because I stubbornly did not want to go back to the hostel again (it was the only one in the area). However, I knew the hostel parking lot was safe, so that's where I slept!
Believe it or not, this was not the end of my bad luck, but it was the end of Auckland, since I successfully escaped the city the next morning. So I will leave this sorry novel here for now, lest your eyes start bleeding! I know mine have, writing all this out. :p I have some nice landscape shots coming up though, so sit tight!
Oh, after all that, I suppose I should use this wonderful public forum to say... I bought this car from Aiyaz Khan and Mark Cooper at "Cheap Cars" in Otahuhu, Auckland, New Zealand, located at 19 Avenue Road. Motor Vehicle Trader # 402816554. Just sayin'.
And in case you need a visual:
The name says it all. You get what you pay for, eh? And yet my $800 Subaru I had on my last trip was essentially trouble-free...
Where to start? I suppose the start of all this trouble is that for some insane reason, I happily shelled out $1700 for that Mazda Familia without having it mechanically inspected. I suppose I was trying to save myself the extra $150 it would cost for a checkup and just hope for the best. But $1700, Sarah? Seriously? You threw that much money at something without getting professional advice on the decision? Stupid, stupid, stupid! I wouldn't buy a horse for that much without getting a second opinion, if not a pre-purchase exam by a qualified veterinarian, so why not a car?
The last thing I mentioned about the car was before I went to Pakiri, when there was a leak in the radiator hose and it was spraying coolant everywhere. I went to the dealer's car lot at 1pm and his receptionist said he wasn't there and wouldn't be back until 4 or 5. I asked her if I could use the phone to call him, and she said she wasn't allowed to let people use the phone. I asked her if she could call him for me, and she said no, she wasn't allowed. I stared quizzically at her and said something along the lines of... "You are a receptionist who cannot call the PERSON YOU WORK FOR on the COMPANY phone?!" She told me I could go and use a pay phone, but I stared at her with a raised eyebrow until she picked up the phone and called her himself, haha. But there was no answer! So I said I would wait. I went out to get a book to entertain myself, and while I was at the car, she came out and said she had called again and he had answered, and he said to go to the shop down the road and they would take care of it. The dealer owns a "panelbeaters" (autobody repair), and the two young guys there did the repair. At the time, I did not know that they weren't mechanics, since they had also originally done the oil change and a few other routine things before I got the car. It turns out they just do some basic mechanical things, but their primary occupation is restoration. They left the rattling sound undiagnosed, but I was told it should not be of much concern. Again, I didn't know that they weren't really qualified to be commenting on that at the time, and I was desperate to get out of Auckland, so I accepted that explanation. But what did I think was going to happen? That it would go away on its own??
The other problem that was becoming apparent was that the car was “gutless”; that is, it seemed to be lacking power. I could floor it and it was like driving a two ton truck... it merely crept forward. Then, it would rev quite high and hoof it into the next gear. In fact, it was so unresponsive that I hardly felt safe when pulling out onto a roadway, for fear that I would not get across or into the lane before traffic caught up with me! Thinking back to my test drive, I realize it was doing this then too, but it was not apparent then since I only drove it in town at low speeds and for a short stretch on the motorway. I'm not sure if the ticking sound was happening then, but it's possible that it was and I didn't notice it, or it got worse in the days after the sale.
I didn't drive anywhere while I was at Pakiri, but when I left and was headed towards Auckland again, I flip-flopped between thinking, “I should take the car back to the dealer to see what he thinks of these issues.” and “Eh, it's probably fine / it's my imagination / I don't want to know about problems that will cost me $ to fix (hah)” I eventually decided to stop in at a mechanic's and see if he could help me determine the severity of the situation. The one I ended up at was very kind, and said that while he could not diagnose the problems on the spot, they were extremely likely to be pre-existing conditions and I should take it back to the dealer. If he wouldn't help, the Consumer's Guarantee Act would - legislation that states that any product or service which is not fit for the purpose intended can be returned to the proprietor for a refund or to be fixed within a reasonable amount of time after purchase (yes, even used cars). He was quite peeved that the dealer had sold the car to me in this condition. Armed with this new knowledge, I tried to call the dealer's mobile, but a recording said, “This number is not permitted to receive calls”, which I later found out likely meant he had not paid his phone bill. I did get a hold of his receptionist at his office and she said I would have to wait until Monday to speak with him, as it was after 4 on a Friday at this point. I was in the lovely beach town of Orewa then, about 30km north of Auckland, and I figured this was not the worst place to be stuck for a weekend if that is how it had to be
I found a nice hostel and made some friends right away. The next day, two mechanically inclined fellows helped me look at the car more closely, and when we took the alternator belt off, the rattle stopped, so the hypothesis was that the bearing needed replacing. They couldn't help me with the power issue, but it was a start.
The hostel, “Pillows”.
The manager of the hostel told me he knew why I was having bad luck, and pointed to my necklace:
This is the necklace my lovely friend, also a Sarah (hi Sarah #2!) gave me. In fact, she gave it to me before my last trip, but my mum had beaten her to the punch and given me a QUADRUPLE good luck charm necklace that had a horseshoe, four leaf clover, wishbone, and heart. Sadly the chain broke in my last week of travel and the charm fell off somewhere. But that meant that Sarah's necklace got a turn as my travel charm, but what the manager pointed out is that the horse shoe is upside down, and therefore all of my luck was RUNNING OUT. Oh noes! In an entirely scientific experiment, I decided to remove it (sorry Sarah #2!) and replace it with...
This necklace, which another lovely friend (hi erincalenear!) gave me on my last trip (see, I'm very fair with my jewellery - wearing everything in the order it was given to me!). It's a pretty paua shell. :)
I didn't do a lot that weekend... I didn't want to drive too far in case the car exploded, but the hostel was right across from the beach, so I walked the length of that, and did drive to a nearby park to go for a hike.
Not the worst place to be stuck for a weekend. :)
Neat cobblestone effect on the rocks, entirely natural.
Of course I chose a hike that promised a waterfall viewing, but it was just a little one!
I came out of the forest and was met with a trail across this pasture.
After making my way up the grade, I was rewarded with an ocean view.
And sheep, of course! (they are never far)
On Monday, I headed to Auckland, but again the dealer was not available. The receptionist told me to take it down the panelbeaters again, though, and the nice young men there did the best they could to help me. They suggested the power problem could be remedied by new spark plugs, so I went out and bought those and they put them in. That made little if any difference, however. They agreed that the rattle may be from the alternator, and said they could get a replacement from the wreckers the next day. Meanwhile, the dealer showed up. He had previously said that any labour that the panelbeaters could do would be free of charge, but he wanted me to pay for the alternator. I told him I was dissatisfied with that because I believed it was a pre-existing condition. He said he wanted me to be happy and agreed to pay for it. Regarding the power in the car, he claimed that there was no problem - that was the way it was supposed to be, because it was only a 1500cc engine. That answer did not sit right with me, but I was more concerned with the ticking sound anyway, and thought it would be best to resolve that first and go from there. I was told to come back the next day for the alternator replacement. On the way back to the hostel though, I stopped in at a proper mechanic's for a second opinion on the power, and after a test drive, he not only said that it was not normal, but was able to diagnose it as a problem with the timing belt, which could cost between $200 and $350 to fix. He thought the ticking noise was either the alternator or the water pump, and agreed with the other mechanic that the dealer should be cooperative in helping me fix it. He kindly did not charge me for his time.
The next day, the panelbeaters swapped out the alternator, but unfortunately that did not fix the rattle. That pretty much took all afternoon, perhaps because they are not mechanics and had to figure things out as they went (well, one said that it was the other guy's first time doing it and he was supervising him... great).
The day after that, when I insisted to the dealer that the power was not normal, he came for a test drive with me. Even after that, he maintained that nothing was wrong, holding that I was expecting too much from the small engine. I maintain that my SCOOTER had more power than that car. Faced with the possibility of having to drop $350 on repairs plus still not having resolved the ticking sound, I used his assertion to my advantage and said that if he didn't think there was anything wrong with the car, he should have no problem trading me for something else on the lot. Ideally I would have just liked to get my money back, as the Consumer's Guarantee Act allows for (yes, even on used cars), BUT I had since found out that by writing “As is, where is” in tiny letters at the bottom of our contract, none of those rules applied to this transaction and I had no legal leg to stand on.
The only problem now was that I didn't know what vehicle I should trade for. If the dealer hid this many things about the Mazda, what was he hiding about his other cars? Would I just be trading for a new set of problems? I sought the advice of the mechanic who had helped me the other day, and he said he had to head over to the area the dealer was in to get some parts, and could stop in and help me sort the lemons from the... I'll say limes, because as it turned out, he wasn't really happy with ANYTHING on that lot. Everything had high kilometers (one had 400,000+ and the dealer still wanted $1500 I think!) or strange problems like no 5th gear. A Toyota Starlet we test drove was decent except it was burning oil. At this point I had abandoned hope of getting a car that fit my lifestyle (i.e., with fold-down seats so I could sleep in the back if I wanted) and just wanted something mechanically sound. By using a process of elimination, this left us with a 1991 Nissan Sentra. It too had high km's (262,000), but its engine was sound. However, it came with it's own quirks that all of the cars on the dealer's lot seemed to have a few of: the driver's side door cannot be manually locked from the inside when the door is open (it can be when it is closed, but once the door is open, it has be locked with the key from the outside). The passenger's side door cannot be unlocked with the key at all. And lastly, the boot (trunk) cannot be opened with the inside lever OR the key - I have to open it by pulling a STRING which is attached to the lever inside. Yeesh! Of course that means anyone walking by can open the boot, so I can't keep any valuables in there.
OF COURSE the dealer wasn't around to make the trade official at that time, so yet again I was told to come back the next day, which by this point was FRIDAY. I had wasted FIVE whole days with these clowns. Every morning I would check out of my hostel and tell the owners that I hoped I wouldn't see them again that night, but for four nights, I begrudgingly returned. I felt like Charlie in that 60's song about the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority in Boston), where they raised the fare while Charlie was on the train and he wasn't allowed off because he didn't have the extra fare:
Let me tell you the story
Of a man named Charlie
On a tragic and fateful day
He put ten cents in his pocket,
Kissed his wife and family
Went to ride on the MTA
Charlie handed in his dime
At the Kendall Square Station
And he changed for Jamaica Plain
When he got there the conductor told him,
"One more nickel."
Charlie could not get off that train.
Auckland to me was what the train was to Charlie... I felt like I would never get out of that city!
The mechanic had told me to bring the Sentra to his shop on Friday so he could have a closer look at it on the hoist before I officially committed to the trade. The battery had been flat for the test drive and subsequently when I went to take it to the mechanic's, so I had to jump start it both times using a battery pack the dealer had (I was told the battery would be replaced if I bought it, at least). I momentarily forgot that I had jump started it the second time when I saw that the fuel light was on - knowing my luck, I would run out on the way to the mechanic's, so I stopped to put $5 in (I didn't want to put in more in case I didn't end up trading for the car). But of course when I went to start it again, it wouldn't... duh. No one around me had jumper cables, but luckily there was a tire shop next door who also had some batteries, and the guy actually just held a battery against mine and that gave it enough juice to start.
Then it was off to the shop, where a different mechanic actually ended up assigned to the checkup. He found that the brake pads were quite worn, but this was not a surprise since the brakes were not very responsive during the test drive. $95 later, I had new brake pads... and the young mechanic's phone number, hahah! A couple hours later, while waiting for the panelbeaters to put in a different battery, reinstall my stereo from the Mazda (it took FOREVER), and fix the boot/trunk (it wouldn't close properly), I got a text asking me out for dinner. ;)
The panelbeater working on the boot latch.
Once everything was fixed up (as well as it could be, anyway), I returned to the car lot to do the paperwork. The dealer claimed this car, which was older and had twice as many kilometers as my Mazda, was worth $2000, so I had to pay an extra $300 to trade it for my $1700 Mazda. Add in the $95 brake pads and $75 to register it and I was nearly out another $500. I have had pangs of regret over this, because I am thinking I could have just got the Mazda fixed for that much, and it had power windows, central locking, air conditioning, and the fold down seats I love so. But I comfort myself by saying that there may have been more problems than just the timing belt and rattle. In fact, it's likely. There was also transmission oil leaking, so the whole tranny could have been on its last legs. Sadly someone else will probably be suckered into buying that car now, by that smooth talking evil dealer... I wish I could warn them.
Although I was determined to get out of Auckland that day, I decided to go out to dinner with the mechanic, because it was already early evening and I wouldn't have made it far anyway. Plus, I was hungry! He offered to pick me up, but since I'm a nomad, I didn't exactly have an address to give him... so instead I met him in a dark parking lot and got into his car so he could kidnap me (safety first!). He asked how everything had gone since I had seen him at the shop in the morning, and as I explained, I held my keys in my lap, but something was amiss... in slow motion, I lifted my keychain up and found... the car key was missing. The thin, cheap keyring from the dealer had bent and pulled apart sometime between when I locked my door and went I got in the mechanic's car. As he said... unbelievable, after all that had already happened! We returned to where my car was parked, thinking it had fallen off between vehicles, but we actually found it underneath my seat. After that, we had a nice dinner and conversation, but by then it was too late to get out of the city, so I ended up sleeping in my car because I stubbornly did not want to go back to the hostel again (it was the only one in the area). However, I knew the hostel parking lot was safe, so that's where I slept!
Believe it or not, this was not the end of my bad luck, but it was the end of Auckland, since I successfully escaped the city the next morning. So I will leave this sorry novel here for now, lest your eyes start bleeding! I know mine have, writing all this out. :p I have some nice landscape shots coming up though, so sit tight!
Oh, after all that, I suppose I should use this wonderful public forum to say... I bought this car from Aiyaz Khan and Mark Cooper at "Cheap Cars" in Otahuhu, Auckland, New Zealand, located at 19 Avenue Road. Motor Vehicle Trader # 402816554. Just sayin'.
And in case you need a visual:
The name says it all. You get what you pay for, eh? And yet my $800 Subaru I had on my last trip was essentially trouble-free...