The Never-ending story.... or, Kar-ma Kontinued

I dithered most of an entire weekend bidding on this car at Ebay, since I’m notoriously cheap, plus the added de-centive of buying without trying is easily enough to turn you off. However, I must say that my last sight-unseen purchase turned out pretty well. (I bought a horse for $300 because his owners were moving to Alaska in 2 days – he’ll sell for around $1500-1800)

I checked out the seller’s feedback thoroughly; and as he is a registered car salesman I feel okay about it. I have another friend who bought a truck from Ebay and traveled to Kentucky to get it. I talked to another friend who has owned 2 of these little cars and she loves them. Got to remember though, when buying a used car there is usually a chunk of change in repairs, else why would the original person sell it? At least I have a reliable (if not cheap) mechanic. But I really really want something newer than Ol’ Betsy, and A/C would soooo be a bonus. Everything’s a risk anyway.

There were nearly 30 bids for this auction but I prevailed... not without a lot of fingernail-biting. But then I asked myself, if it was in the paper for what I bid, would I go and look at it and try to buy it - heck yes, I looked at lots of poorer quality cars for more $. Mom drove us to get the car. Not too far, about 40miles NW of her place is Walker, which is basically a large suburb of Grand Rapids. Kind of like how Auburn Hills, Ypsilanti, and Royal Oak are all basically Detroit. As in how Portage is really a sect of Kalamazoo, like Kazoo’s rich cousin who does not want to claim common ancestry for fear of being tarred with the same brush. And how the “boroughs” of Queens, Manhattan, etc... are all New York City.

[The car didn’t have a stereo, so I bought a $39 AM/FM CD player at ABC Warehouse, the Wal-Mart of appliance stores. Of course there is a $4 service charge, plus a $20 “parts” charge along with the “free installation”, but it’s still a decent deal. Now if only I could get my 100+ top tunes on a CD, I’d be set!]

Had to have a few things done to the car, new tie rods, thermostat, and radiator fan... will need new brakes SOON. But overall a cute little ride. Much smaller than the last car, which is just STRANGE for me. I thought the *last car was teeny. This one I can haul around in the back of the truck like a lifeboat! That thought tickles my funny bone. Like someone said of a recent luxury SUV made by Ford....”The all-new Excursion.... comes with it’s own Explorer”!



Meantime, a small rant. I mentioned getting the thermostat replaced earlier. Said car is still overheating, basically any time it wants to. However, been to the mechanic twice and *he can't get it to act up! So he's lending me some horrendously expensive piece of test equipment to detect if the engine is *actually overheating. It could be a gage problem. It has overheated on me about 3 times. One of those times I considered valid - it was about 100 degrees F outdoors, and I had the A/C on full blast. So of course I did the "right" thing by opening the windows and turning on the heat. (This shunts some of the engine heat into the passenger compartment, ostensibly reducing the heat in the engine area). Yep, NOTHING like driving around in the blazing hot sun with the FUCKING HEATER on. And the gage would obligingly drop about 1/3 of the way. The good thing about this is that said mechanic won't charge me for the *five hours he messed with it today, unless he actually finds something that needs fixing.