"If it seems too easy, you're not trying hard enough." Part 3: Cars
My luck with cars has not been optimal these past few months. My first car, a banged-up 1991 Dodge Spirit, was retired in March because I was handed down my mother's 1996 Chrysler Concorde LXi. Overall, it looked like a very nice car, and had a very nice series of options, including a sunroof. However, looks can be deceiving...
About two months after acquiring it, the first incident occurred. While in the process of merging onto the highway, I noticed the temperature gauge zooming to the 'H' mark, and the corresponding idiot light on the dash coming on. I pulled over to the side of the highway, and had it towed to a local garage, who found very little wrong with it. Not a week after that, I was driving in the middle of downtown Lowell, and what should I see but the temperature gauge having pegged again, and steam streaming from the underside of my hood. AARGH! Once again, it got towed back to the garage, where they found that the air conditioner compressor had seized due to a series of misdiagnoses, the belt driving it had snapped, and the belt had gotten caught in the cooling fan, blowing it's fuse.
Thigs were relatively fine for a month or two after that, but soon, things started going wrong yet again. I noticed that my car now had a tendency to stall at low speeds. While making a turn or cruising along, the tachometer would often dip below the standard idle speed of 750RPM, occasionally catching itself napping, but often just sputtering out and dying. This made pulling up to a stoplight an adventure in frustration, and getting off of off-ramps a dangerous interlude (I once ended up kissing the bumper of a truck after the engine stalled in the middle of an off-ramp which ended in a hill). At one point, it stalled out while going 30MPH on a windy country backroad, which was a sheer nightmare. I suspected a faulty sensor, but none of the shops it was taken to seemed to be able to figure it out.
In the end, it wasn't the stalling which was the final straw, however. Not long after the backroads incident mentioned above, I was pulling out of an intersection when I heard a loud "thunk." from the back of the car. I looked in my rearview mirror, and saw a lovely cloud of smoke streaming from the back wheels. Once again, it had to get towed home. Once in a repair shop, it was found that the entire rear suspension had collapsed. Needless to say, I had had enough of the thing. While it spent a whole month in the repair shop, I decided to look for a replacement vehicle. After looking over several cars, including a lovely 1986 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, the final choice ended up being a 1995 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight Royale. It drives very nicely, and is in good shape. Hopefully, it will last me a few years.
-Adam
About two months after acquiring it, the first incident occurred. While in the process of merging onto the highway, I noticed the temperature gauge zooming to the 'H' mark, and the corresponding idiot light on the dash coming on. I pulled over to the side of the highway, and had it towed to a local garage, who found very little wrong with it. Not a week after that, I was driving in the middle of downtown Lowell, and what should I see but the temperature gauge having pegged again, and steam streaming from the underside of my hood. AARGH! Once again, it got towed back to the garage, where they found that the air conditioner compressor had seized due to a series of misdiagnoses, the belt driving it had snapped, and the belt had gotten caught in the cooling fan, blowing it's fuse.
Thigs were relatively fine for a month or two after that, but soon, things started going wrong yet again. I noticed that my car now had a tendency to stall at low speeds. While making a turn or cruising along, the tachometer would often dip below the standard idle speed of 750RPM, occasionally catching itself napping, but often just sputtering out and dying. This made pulling up to a stoplight an adventure in frustration, and getting off of off-ramps a dangerous interlude (I once ended up kissing the bumper of a truck after the engine stalled in the middle of an off-ramp which ended in a hill). At one point, it stalled out while going 30MPH on a windy country backroad, which was a sheer nightmare. I suspected a faulty sensor, but none of the shops it was taken to seemed to be able to figure it out.
In the end, it wasn't the stalling which was the final straw, however. Not long after the backroads incident mentioned above, I was pulling out of an intersection when I heard a loud "thunk." from the back of the car. I looked in my rearview mirror, and saw a lovely cloud of smoke streaming from the back wheels. Once again, it had to get towed home. Once in a repair shop, it was found that the entire rear suspension had collapsed. Needless to say, I had had enough of the thing. While it spent a whole month in the repair shop, I decided to look for a replacement vehicle. After looking over several cars, including a lovely 1986 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, the final choice ended up being a 1995 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight Royale. It drives very nicely, and is in good shape. Hopefully, it will last me a few years.
-Adam
posted by Adam Vaughn at 1:26 AM
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