"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." (to debt)
The automobile saga of my life continues.
For those of you who have known me long enough, you know that one of my passions has also been one of my pitfalls - financially speaking. Cars. Ever since my first car, I feel I've had an inordinate amount of issues, and the costs incurred by these issues has grown on a sliding scale along with my own gross income.
My first car was given to me by my dad. It was a 1988 Plymouth Reliant K. That was a great car, for being four cylinders. It was comfortable, got decent gas mileage, and the radio and A/C worked.
That car, outside of the typical maintenance and replacement of consumables, cost me a radiator, master cylinder, a brand new tire that failed because of shotty workmanship (short version - they didn't screw the valve in all way, slow leak, it goes flat and get shredded before I can get back there, and they say "How do we know that's what happened?"), and some minor body work from someone that doesn't understand the concept of a stop sign.
Finally sold it when I went to college. Found out it died from electrical problems 6 months later.
Next up, was a 1994 Plymouth Voyager minivan. Say what you want about minivans, they are useful. Another tire folly here (though, this one was my fault), and a string of bizarre and aggrevating (And expensive) transmissions problems. Finally got rid of that, and bought a 1994 Ford Tempo.
During the time of the Tempo, my sisters car died, so we wound up sharing a car, and she bought a 1988 Thunderbird. A genuine High Output 5.0 V-8 sports car. She didn't like it, it was too big of a car for her, so we traded.
At the time, and given my income, this was going to be my first modified vehicle. Engine upgrades galore (the 5.0's were great for that stuff). It had about 100k miles on it, but would STILL whoop the piss out of the little import ricers - which given the shoddy exterior (rust, cracked windshield), would really piss those sticker-boys off.
This car met it's fate in the bottom of a ditch on Feburary 14th on my way to the movies. It was snowing very heavily, and the roads were treacherous. I was doing about 25 MPH, coming up on an intersection, and an oncoming SUV decided to try to make a left turn... needless to say, they couldn't get out of my way fast enough (no traction), and I couldn't stop (no traction), so wound up swerve/sliding around him, and down a steep bank into some trees.
Flat tire, trashed passanger side, bent axle, shattered headlight, broken side mirror.
To the junkyard it went, and back to sharing the Ford Tempo.
A few months later, I bought my first luxury car. A 1994 Lincoln Town Car, in beautiful condition, just shy over 50k miles, for a song. This was in late March, early April of 2003. Since then, I've had to replace the A/C compressor, got ripped off by a "misunderstanding" by AAMCO (very long story), had the transmission and torque converter replaced (over 100k miles on it now), some electronics/switches replaced, and of course, the general basic/expected stuff. (And no, not all of it happened at once, so it wasn't just a dolled up car with hidden problems, this was all spaced... pretty evenly actually... over the last three years. - So I guess I should have expected this.)
Well, it's time for me to put new tires on it again, after one went flat on me last weekend, again, this wouldn't be a big deal, it's to be expected, it's a consumable, but today, my air suspension warning light came on. I knew one of my airbags was starting to show some wear and leaked a little when it was on a lift for oil changes... but it finally got bad enough where the car is detecting it.
So now, I gotta come up with the money for the tires (and I don't like buying cheapos), and lay out about 300 bucks plus labor for new airbags, and going to get the air dryers and compressor replaced at the same time (since it's all factory original, it's probably about time).
Thankfully, my Fiero is almost street legal (I bought that about a year ago, 1988 Fiero GT with a Chevy 350 V8 crammed into it. woohoo!), so I can just drive that if I have to until I get the Lincoln all back up to par.
Between this and my computers... I'm glad I took the new job. I need the money.
For those of you who have known me long enough, you know that one of my passions has also been one of my pitfalls - financially speaking. Cars. Ever since my first car, I feel I've had an inordinate amount of issues, and the costs incurred by these issues has grown on a sliding scale along with my own gross income.
My first car was given to me by my dad. It was a 1988 Plymouth Reliant K. That was a great car, for being four cylinders. It was comfortable, got decent gas mileage, and the radio and A/C worked.
That car, outside of the typical maintenance and replacement of consumables, cost me a radiator, master cylinder, a brand new tire that failed because of shotty workmanship (short version - they didn't screw the valve in all way, slow leak, it goes flat and get shredded before I can get back there, and they say "How do we know that's what happened?"), and some minor body work from someone that doesn't understand the concept of a stop sign.
Finally sold it when I went to college. Found out it died from electrical problems 6 months later.
Next up, was a 1994 Plymouth Voyager minivan. Say what you want about minivans, they are useful. Another tire folly here (though, this one was my fault), and a string of bizarre and aggrevating (And expensive) transmissions problems. Finally got rid of that, and bought a 1994 Ford Tempo.
During the time of the Tempo, my sisters car died, so we wound up sharing a car, and she bought a 1988 Thunderbird. A genuine High Output 5.0 V-8 sports car. She didn't like it, it was too big of a car for her, so we traded.
At the time, and given my income, this was going to be my first modified vehicle. Engine upgrades galore (the 5.0's were great for that stuff). It had about 100k miles on it, but would STILL whoop the piss out of the little import ricers - which given the shoddy exterior (rust, cracked windshield), would really piss those sticker-boys off.
This car met it's fate in the bottom of a ditch on Feburary 14th on my way to the movies. It was snowing very heavily, and the roads were treacherous. I was doing about 25 MPH, coming up on an intersection, and an oncoming SUV decided to try to make a left turn... needless to say, they couldn't get out of my way fast enough (no traction), and I couldn't stop (no traction), so wound up swerve/sliding around him, and down a steep bank into some trees.
Flat tire, trashed passanger side, bent axle, shattered headlight, broken side mirror.
To the junkyard it went, and back to sharing the Ford Tempo.
A few months later, I bought my first luxury car. A 1994 Lincoln Town Car, in beautiful condition, just shy over 50k miles, for a song. This was in late March, early April of 2003. Since then, I've had to replace the A/C compressor, got ripped off by a "misunderstanding" by AAMCO (very long story), had the transmission and torque converter replaced (over 100k miles on it now), some electronics/switches replaced, and of course, the general basic/expected stuff. (And no, not all of it happened at once, so it wasn't just a dolled up car with hidden problems, this was all spaced... pretty evenly actually... over the last three years. - So I guess I should have expected this.)
Well, it's time for me to put new tires on it again, after one went flat on me last weekend, again, this wouldn't be a big deal, it's to be expected, it's a consumable, but today, my air suspension warning light came on. I knew one of my airbags was starting to show some wear and leaked a little when it was on a lift for oil changes... but it finally got bad enough where the car is detecting it.
So now, I gotta come up with the money for the tires (and I don't like buying cheapos), and lay out about 300 bucks plus labor for new airbags, and going to get the air dryers and compressor replaced at the same time (since it's all factory original, it's probably about time).
Thankfully, my Fiero is almost street legal (I bought that about a year ago, 1988 Fiero GT with a Chevy 350 V8 crammed into it. woohoo!), so I can just drive that if I have to until I get the Lincoln all back up to par.
Between this and my computers... I'm glad I took the new job. I need the money.