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An interesting thing I learned today

As I was driving my new car to work this morning, the check engine light came on. Needless to say, that was a thrill (turns out it was just something to do with the gas cap, I think).

Less than a week after I bought my car, I took it back to the dealership to see if they could fix it. While I was there, I noticed my old car on the rack.

Here’s where the story gets fun. When I took the old car over there for appraisal, I told them that it needed serious front-end work. It was my understanding that the right front axle needed replacing, and there was something wrong with the left front wheel, too, although I didn’t think it was as big a deal as the right front wheel.

Incidentally, I did know that either issue could eventually lead to serious calamity, and that was one reason I hoped to trade the car in soon. But I had the impression that “eventually” was an accurate descriptor.

It turns out that I have been living on borrowed time. The repair guy, who I know and trust, said they were fixing the right front axle and the left front something-or-another. He said the left front wheel was the greater danger of the two; it was seconds away from either seizing up or falling off!!

Yes, you read that right. Every time I drove that car for the last six months I was putting myself at extreme risk of a very, very serious accident. Either of my front wheels could have fallen off at any moment.

It’s my understanding that’s a bad thing.

I still can’t believe I got a new car

I still can’t believe I got a new car this week.

A year from now I’ll probably look back at the Subaru as a distant memory, as in “oh yeah, I used to have one of those.”

Wow.

The new car makes my long commute 10x better.

This will drastically improve my daily commute

Today I’m driving home in my new car. It’s the newest car I’ve ever owned at the time of purchase (out of three!), and it’s definitely the nicest.

I have a thirty-five minute commute to work each way. I spend three hundred and fifty minutes a week just driving to and from work, and I probably spend a total of four hundred minutes each week in the car. For those of you without a calculator, that’s nearly 21,000 minutes a year in the car, or about fourteen days.

Those fourteen days will be immeasurably improved by a nice, newish Civic versus the beatup, loud, and faltering Subaru.

The only question is whether the Bug will like the new car as well as she liked the old one. The old car had baby charm: its shaking, rattling, and low engine rumbling was baby nap heaven. The new car will be smooth and quiet and had better not shake or rattle.

My first baby-filled trip home will arrive in about an hour and a half, and I’m caught between excitement and trepidation. At least she’ll be safe now, even if she isn’t as happy.

Out with the old, in with the new

“This” close to a new car

You’ve got to hate how hard they make it to get a new (or new to you) car. On Friday, I wrote about how excited I was to be moving away from the ancient, rickety station wagon that I’ve driven for the past eight years. I got to take it home over the weekend, which was magnificent. I thoroughly enjoy it.

Today began the real haggling. We started by taking the old Subaru for a spin. When I came into this process last week, I figured I’d be lucky to get $500 for the old thing. I realize, of course, that trade-in value is a made-up number, but I was still surprised when they offered four times that much. Of course it did help that the car got its first bath in probably five years.

Then they called back with a number. And I said “let’s talk first about the back windshield.” I loved just about everything about the car other than how hard it was to see in the rear-view-mirror. The back window has tinting gone bad.

They said they’d get on it and call me back, and I’m still waiting. I had set myself up, thinking how cool it’d be never to drive the Subaru home again. bleh.

So I might be getting a new car

Whew, it’s been a long week. I’ll have more on this later, I think, but it looks like I might be getting a new (to me) car sometime next week. I’ve got it with me over the weekend to think it over, and you know how that tends to go.

I’m pretty much excited beyond words. I’ve had a total of two cars in my life: an ‘81 F-150, and the ‘94 Subaru I’m driving now. The Subaru was a big step up from the truck (it has air conditioning!) when I got it eight years ago, but the Honda I’m test driving (an ‘05) has even more to offer (a working speedometer!).

There are a ton of reasons to trade up right now, but number one is the questionable safety of the ancient station wagon. I will feel indescribably safer driving the Honda home today than I did driving the Subaru yesterday.

W00t!