a not very nice valentine’s present from the car

We have two cars – a 1999 Civic and a 1992 Colt. The Colt has been out of commission for a couple of weeks now. It went through a phase of not starting when it was rainy and Baker B finally got it a tuneup and a new distributor cap a month or so ago. Then week before last it wouldn’t start again. He kept not doing anything about it and not doing anything about it and not doing anything about it. We both work on campus so can share a car, which, let me tell you, is okay for a few days but is quite a pain when it goes on for two weeks. But anyhow, he finally got it towed in a couple of days ago. They didn’t call him about it yesterday, so he called them today.

It needs a new computer. Which, actually, isn’t quite as bad as it sounds – at least it’s not if they can FIND a new computer for it. It will cost around $400. Which is a lot less than I’d expect, although a lot more than we need to be spending right now.   BUT the repair guy actually didn’t recommend we fix it. He said we’d be better off buying another car.

Okay. The car is 15 years old. The car is rusting out. Five years ago I checked its Blue Book value because we needed a newer car and thought perhaps we could trade it in. Five years ago the Blue Book value was, oh, $400. Yeah, five years ago a flat tire would have just about totaled it. Mostly because the air conditioner has been broken for years and it’s got rust and smashed places. So right now it’s beyond totaled.

BUT. It’s always been a really good car. We had to have a major transmission repair done to it when it was 9 or 10, and that’s been the only serious problem we’ve ever had. BUT it’s 15 years old. So. Now we’re in a quandary. We have been talking about buying a new car for awhile, since the Colt is 110 in human years and the Civic is also no infant – it’s eight years old and has 121,000 miles on it. We’ve never had a minute’s trouble with it and I’m not worried about it, but that’s getting up there. We need another car. We also keep talking about moving and if we move any farther out in the country we’ll have to have something with 4-wheel drive. Like a Subaru. A car. Not an SUV. So we’ve been considering a used Subaru, although not real seriously because (A) we don’t have any extra cash lying around and (B) we’ve got about a million dollars worth of work we have GOT to have done on our house, and (C) we’re poor.

In July or August, we’ll have the Civic paid off. Yeah, now that it has 121,000 miles on it. But the payments are only $175 a month. We got SO LUCKY with that car. A good friend of Kim’s was selling it and gave us a great deal. She needed to get rid of it fast – she’d decided to go back to school and needed to get rid of her car payment – and it had a few scratches from her dog who went everywhere with her. SO. If the Colt can hold out till then, we’ll have that money we can put on another car. Although I sure don’t think we’ll find another car for payments like that.

SO. We can go ahead and get it fixed. If it’s just $400 and doesn’t turn into more than that. Naturally, there’s a complication. In that the muffler fell off, oh, MONTHS ago. And Baker B never got that fixed. So not only is it a matter of fixing the computer, there’s the matter of the muffler. Which maybe they can just weld on – they did that once before. If it has to have a new muffler, though, that’s a lot MORE money to tack onto the repair bill. Then we can say that’s the last thing we do to it, and we can start looking for another car. If we find another car before it has something else major go wrong, we could probably even sell it for four or five hundred dollars. It’s a good snow car and someone up here might buy it just for that. Just as an extra clunker.

Aggghhhh. I HATE car problems. I also hate sharing a car. Which I guess we’ll be doing for quite some time now. The repair guy hadn’t found a computer when Baker B called him. He might not even find a computer, and then we won’t HAVE a choice. It will be a goner. If he does find one, I bet it will be next week before we get it back. And if it can’t be fixed, there’s no telling how long it will take us to find another car.

Wow. This sucks. At least we have one dependable car. In the past we’ve had three cars with major problems all at the same time. I suppose I should be grateful for that. But… waaahhhh! We LIKE this car, too. It was our first car. Our first car as a married couple. We’ve had it forever!

Oh, well. Just had to whine a bit. Now I better get back to work. I have been working on the licensure paperwork I just got for all the May graduates. The BS students all come in as a group – they do their licensure paperwork at the same time they apply for graduation, so they don’t trickle in like the master’s people do. I have 119 sets of paperwork. I’ve had something like five credit card payment forms with cards that will expire before we send the paperwork in May. One has ALREADY expired. Two had the money orders made out to the college instead of ASU. One didn’t fill in the number for their credit card. One didn’t sign the credit card form. One didn’t send in a payment at all. There were nine problems that required me to send the student a memo. I included a copy of their instruction sheet that tells them specifically that their paperwork won’t go to DPI until May. Because, DUH, they don’t graduate until May. And that tells them specifically to make the check out to DPI. And I highlighted the appropriate instructions. And wanted badly to include a note hoping that their future students are as competent at reading comprehension and in following directions as THEY are, and thanks SO much for causing me even MORE work! But I didn’t.

Send my car good thoughts!