Yes, I’m totally f’ing stressed. Yes, my stomach is in knots and I feel nauseous.
What kind of atrocious situation could put me in such a state? It’s my past. My past is coming back, not to haunt me, but to tell me how I bent over and took it……
My Prius was in an accident before I bought it. And not just any accident, the kind of accident that requires both skins on the two front doors to be replaced, the bumper replaced, as well as the front drivers side panel. My car was still $25,000.
So one might ask themselves, who would pay 25 thousand dollars on a vehicle that was in such a serious accident that TWO opposite sides, as well as the front end of the vehicle had to be worked on (we can assume that it was ran into so hard it got pushed into something else). Well as we can see, that person would be me. Shame on me, right?
Wrong. I was never told. When we (my mom came with me, of course – needed that extra set of eyes) went to look at the vehicle, there were two there. Both gold, same year, the one I ended up buying, we’ll call it my car at this point, had 10 thousand miles on it, and the other 20 thousand. The 20 thousand mile vehicle was around 3-4 thousand dollars less than my $25,000 car. I was 2 months pregnant at this point, and the salesman encouraged me to buy the more expensive of the two, as the more expensive one had a few more options, one option being twice the number of airbags. Me being a newish Mom (as I was still pregnant), my mom and I had to agree that it would be a better idea to pay extra and get the car that was safer, for the baby of course.
After test driving the car, which I immediately fell in love with, my mother got out and noticed a dent in the rear driver’s side door. We asked what it was, where it came from, and insisted it be repaired before I purchased it. So, my salesman assured me that it must have been something like the car was bumped into in a parking lot, and no big deal at all, they could just pop it right back out and it would be as good as new. My mother and I figured then no big deal, something that simple happens to probably almost every car (I have a couple of other scratches from being grazed with other cars – no dents though), and if they were going to fix it that simply, couldn’t be any big deal. So I purchased the car, and made sure I wrote down on the paperwork “fixing damage” under the line that says that I personally examined the vehicle and found it free of damage.
When I went to pick up the car after the door was fixed, the nice body shop man told me that it really couldn’t be popped back out, but that he repainted it and buffed it, so the dent wasn’t really notibable at all anymore. You could see it if you ran your hand down it and got really close to the car – but at this point I had purchased the vehicle, and I thought whatever, I can live with it, it’s nothing.
Well…albeit four years later, my door starts to rust. Yes, rust. I bring it to a Toyota dealer like a good car owner, as I still have quite awhile to pay on this expensive car so I need to make sure it lasts. They tell me that the repair work (wait, what?!) was done incorrectly, not sealed right, and it was causing the door to internally rust. So they could patch it up, paint it or what not, but the rust would come right back. The only way to actually fix it was to replace the whole door skins again, and start over. Thousands of dollars worth of repair.
So I say, wait, this car wasn’t repaired, I had them try to fix a little dent on the rear door, and they tried but ended up just blending it and it didn’t look bad so I didn’t care. The nice body shop worker, said oh, okay, but the front door was too, I’ll show you. So he brings me out to another Prius, around the same year, and opens and shuts the door numerous times so I can hear how nicely it shuts and it just kind of makes a small noise when you shut it. He then walks me over to my car, opens the door, and shuts it, and it slams. The door sounds hollow, and it shuts very loudly. He then informs me that it does that because they stripped the door, and didn’t put the “sound barrier” back in, so it makes that loud hollow sound when you shut it. Wow. Okay.
So I call Brandon quite upset about not being told that my car was in some kind of accident, and now the door was rusting because whomever fixed it didn’t do it right. So he called a Toyota dealer, gave them a story about how he was trying to buy this car off of someone, and wanting to see if they had any service records on it. Lo and behold, there was body shop work done on it, the replaces of both front doors and the front panel, and it was worked on by none other but the people I bought it from. Ah yes, set in anger.
So, back to the beginning, where my past has come back to show me I took it….I am quite, upset to say the least. It is against Florida law to say that the car was not seriously damaged in any way when the customer asks about it (actually I think it might even be a little more generous than that…they pretty much have to tell you). My mother and I obviously asked about the dent, and was reassured it was nothing. I guess nothing to them isn’t a serious accident at 900 miles. Also the vehicle was a certified used, so I figured no problems, as certified used means “basically like new” on Toyota’s brochures. How could that car be a certified used?
So, at this point, the dealership told me they would call me back once they find the actual hard copy of the paperwork from my transaction. Translation: Going to try and figure out how to tell you that you took it, and are going to continue to take it, because we are going to tell you we are not liable and won’t pay to fix it.
So, as life has taken me down this path in my life where even the good is seriously tainted, I’m sure I’ll end up in court at some point. I normally, well no pretty much always let things go. I just deal with things, and say why fight over it. This time, I’m not going to forget. I can’t forget. For the upcoming years that I will still be paying on my car, I need to have it fixed so that where they originally fixed it won’t completely rust out. And what that Toyota dealership did to me (yes, an actual Toyota dealer), was illegal. Let alone that dealership certified that car as a Toyota certified used vehicle, which means they ran a carfax on it and it returned with no problems (obviously wrong), and so I was under the piece of mind that everything was fine.
Why does my life suck?
Tags: Cars
Posted in Patti by Patti 6 days, 17 hours ago at 6:36 am. Add a comment
Holy lack of update batman! I am best at updating at night but whenever I type a lot it wakes Brandon up. So blame it on him. It’s definitely his fault.
I re-activated my facebook. After much deletion (no offense intended) it wasn’t stressing me out anymore, so I guess it can stay. For the time being.
Erik and I leave for Florida tomorrow. I really should be getting ready. Completely unmotivated. I’m too tired.
Brandon is getting a new car tomorrow. Yay. He is getting an 06 Toyota Matrix (I successfully converted him). No more broken truck! Woooooooo. It only has 22k miles on it too, so we got lucky.
Tags: Cars, Travel
Someone shoot me for saying “gotta say.” What the hell. Why are people letting this go on so long? I’m seriously disappointed.
The truck got dropped off tonight to be fixed tomorrow. “Supposedly” fixed I should say. So many other things, like the transmission I got not working, or something else being wrong, or maybe it really wasn’t even the transmission that was shot are much more likely to happen than the truck actually being fixed. The truck being to a point where it is workable and driving is I’d say, about 7%. All those other things are much more likely.
I got a B in one class. I can’t believe it. It’s actually blowing my mind. Makes me sad…I wouldn’t care so much besides the fact that my entire life is depending on grad school. And since I don’t know anyone, grad school isn’t going to come as easily to me as to all the other traditional students. I suck at life. Why does everything have to be so much harder for me?
And….Erik’s sick. I mean like, sick sick. Erik never gets sick. Ever. He was running a high fever today, well what I consider high. It was 102.6 at one point. It was making me nervous. He is finally in his own bed sleeping though. We watched 7 movies today, and he started an 8th. Then he finally passed out. I ended up laying in bed with him all day because my psyche reverted back to that of a first time mom with a newborn. Erik hasn’t had a fever since…um…he was a tiny infant? Not a really serious fever anyway. He has had the sniffles, and some other minor stuff, but nothing this bad. I was freaked out, and still am. I keep checking on him every half an hour. Okay okay I know a bit much, and he is 3 so I should have calmed down by now. But he is my boy, and if Brandon and I don’t love and take care of him he will never know what it’s like. And he deserves that, and so much more. *sigh* If he doesn’t feel better by 8:30 am he will be going to the Dr.
Tags: Cars, Erik Dr., Sad, School, Sickly, Stress
Posted in Patti by Patti 2 months, 2 weeks ago at 12:27 am. Add a comment
Gotta tell ya, buy a Prius if you can. We have been blessed with it. My car has almost 90 thousand miles on it, and it has never been in the shop. Ever. Except for tires, and normal maintenance. It has been a life saver so many times. I can say “knock on wood” but I have been saying that it’s never been in the shop and I can’t believe it forever now, so I don’t think me saying it is cursing myself.
When my Prius dies, I’m buying a new one. Thank you.
Tags: Cars
Posted in Patti by Patti 2 months, 3 weeks ago at 10:11 am. 1 comment
So, when we last left off I was trying to get the transmission to shift. Well, having talked to a mechanic it’s been determined that the transmission is shot, most likely from being towed while in gear! Just our luck! I would say that’s a very reasonable explanation especially since the shift cable is broken so either, it was towed in gear and then the shift cable was broken trying to get it into gear, or the shift cable was broken and it was assumed that it was in neutral even though it wasn’t.
If you’ve been paying attention, that leaves us with two dead cars each with a blown transmission!
This whole vehicle situation is really wearing on Patti and I because every step we take ends up being a step backwards. Not only are we down to one vehicle (which leaves Patti or I home with Erik and no vehicle if there was an emergency), but we’re piling the miles onto the only car we do have (that we still owe money on)!
So, we’re really at a loss as to how to proceed. We have a transmission for the truck (taking up all of Patti’s trunk), but no one to put it in yet (or the money to do so). And even if we pull that off, we’re still stuck with this gas guzzling POS truck that bites us in the ass every 3 to 6 months with something major!
Hopefully we can get the truck running and still buy groceries and hopefully we can trade in the truck at the next opportunity for a more reliable vehicle that gets better gas mileage. I also think I’m going to keep working on the Neon, possibly try and rebuild the tranny myself. I don’t ever want us to be in a situation like this again!
Tags: Cars, Life, Stress
As I’m sure you are well aware, the transmission on my Trailblazer is shot. (Don’t buy a GM product, worse decision I’ve ever made). So, I’m trying to get an old 1995 Dodge Neon running that has been “willed” to us. I went out to Rochester today to get the title transferred into our name so we can get the thing registered and titled (registration assuming we can get it running. Title so we can sell it if we have to for whatever we can get for it).
Last summer my Grandfather had Nora’s Neon towed up to the lake, where it could sit some more. I started to “passively” tinker with it to try and get it running because we thought if we could get it running then I’d be able to use it to drive to work with since it would be a lot better on gas than the truck and wouldn’t be tacking on the miles.
After I couldn’t get it started, I pulled the starter and had it tested: it was bad. We bought a used one online and I dropped it in. Nothing still… I tinkered a bit but didn’t know much more to do other than kick the tires and turn the key hoping it would work. So, I gave up.
Now, we need this car. It’s not a want, it’s a need! So, I had my dad come up to “kick the tires” with me since that’s about the extent of his mechanical ability and we tried to get it to a better spot to work on.
Yesterday we got it towed out, using my $10,000 trailblazer “tractor” (reverse, 1st, and 2nd gear are still working). While towing it, we noticed a clicking sound in the front end even though it was in Neutral (we now realize it was probably the transmission). So after we found it a new home in front of the garage where we could work on it better, we put it on blocks and started removing the tires (they’re all toast). While doing this, I noticed the tires would still spin even though it was in Park which made me nervous that the transmission was bad (just my luck). After talking to my dad’s friend Gary, he had me follow the shift cable and try to change the gears at the transmission side. That’s when I found the shift cable led to “nowhere” because it’s clip had broken on the transmission side.
Today, I braved the bitter cold and wind to try and manually get the car in Park so that I could try and start the car. No such luck at all. No matter how hard I tried to get the gear selector to move, I couldn’t. I pushed and i pulled and I heated it up and I WD-40′d it and I tap’d it lightly with a hammer and I hit it with a hammer and I fought and finally, I broke the bracket….
So, I removed the two brackets from the shift selector (there is a large, keyed bracket that the shifter hooks to, and then on top of that is another bracket that has a spring loaded cable attached to it that then connects to what looks like the throttle (What is this one for?!)). I then tried again to get the shifter to change gears but I couldn’t get it to go. Having been chilled to the bone (my legs were cramped because they were so cold), I called it quits.
I’m at a loss at this point because I have no idea why i can’t get the shifter to change gears. I also want to know what the other cable is for and I am having a hell of a time finding a new shifter cable!
Any ideas? They would be greatly appreciated!
Tags: Cars
So we’re nearing that time again. It’s almost the end of the semester. I have one final, and two papers left. I only have one more class to attend. I had a exam yesterday, and it was brutal to say the least. Hopefully I pass that class! Yea, ME! I know, it’s crazy. There was one question I didn’t answer at all. I mean, at all. I drew a couple little pictures. Ha.
So sorry that we haven’t posted a lot lately (but maybe I’m apologizing to myself?) The truck is d-e-d (yes I missed the A on purpose) so life is stressful. Brandon had to take a personal day today to go out to where Nora’s sister lives to hopefully get the Neon transferred over to us. Now, to get the Neon running…haha. We’re praying. If we don’t get it running we have no idea what we are going to do. The truck is going to cost so much to fix, just for it to break again, because there are other things wrong with it. And other things going wrong with it. WHY?! Anyway.
Erik is also sickly. He has a really bad running yellownastyness nose. Now he is developing a cough. I was thinking of taking him to the Dr. this morning but when he woke up he was doing alright and the nose was slowing down. Of course once he got up and running his nose started running again. Eep. Mucinex for kids is great though, gotta say. Last time he got this runny nose stuff I just dealt with it myself and I got it to go away with no Dr. visit. Hopefully it will happen again that way.
Tonight is supposed to be date night for Brandon and I. As we are in such a rut with the truck, I’m making dinner at home and we’re going to a movie. That’s the extent of our extra entertainment. It’s okay, we’re happy with it.
At least Christmas is soon! Hopefully Erik enjoys it more this year!!
Tags: Cars, Erik Dr., Movies, School, Sickly, Stress
