Buckle up, this is a teensy bit of a long one.
For the last... Two years, I've driven a truck. It was the first vehicle that was truly mine after getting my license. It was registered to my dad, but I had wanted to buy it off him before I moved away from home late last year. We agreed that he would essentially give it to me- BUT I had to pay for the repairs it needed and help him do said repairs. More than fair tradeoff.
I loved that truck. It was my baby. I loved to drive it, to feel the power as I shifted gears, to see the look of surprise on people's faces when I told them that my '03 only had 95,000 miles on it, and I'd put on 23,000 of those in the last year. It served me well. It had its quirks, but it got me safely to work and home every day.
Several things happened starting in September and spanning through the start of April to it, costing me about $1100. Normal car things, it was old. Muffler to pass inspection, master/slave cylinder because it stopped shifting, right front caliper and rotor because the caliper seized and took the rotor with it. I paid for and repaired all of those things, because 1100 in repairs is nothing compared to 5000+ for a newer car.
The last straw came in April. The week before I had hit black ice and slid into a ditch. I was fine, and the truck drove home, but it must've broken something as the following Monday, I tried to drive to work and everything was wrong. It felt like the truck was fighting against itself, and it wanted to stall unless I gunned the gas the second I got off the clutch(you know, the thing that you never want to do if your vehicle is running properly). I made it five miles before I called my boss, said I'm so sorry, I can't make it in, and drove home.
This is where the money pit comes in. A week or two prior to the ice incident my mother had texted telling me that my uncle was selling his Toyota. This one was an '06, and an automatic. It would definitely get better mileage than my 15mpg, and I knew I needed to replace my truck soon. The day I had to turn my truck around, I called her and told her I would take the car.
My parents are a blessing and I know that, even though I'm not a faithful person. They said okay, we'll do the five hour drive to pick it up, your dad will repair the exhaust and we'll meet you halfway as soon as you have plates for it. I paid them the $300 my uncle was asking and spent the next week getting rides to work from my sister and BIL, got my plates transferred to my new car, and went to pick it up.
The first week or two with my new car was amazing. Again, it had its quirks. I almost ran it out of gas twice due to my tank going from thirty gallons to ten. But it ran and I could trust it.
Except...
My check engine light was on. Nothing I did would turn it off. In my state, you HAVE to pass emissions within ten days of registration. After failing said emissions, I drove back to my parents and said okay, help me fix this.
Auto shop said it was the catalytic converter and they never lie, right? I said no, that's not it but my dad replaced it anyways(mind you, this is a $200 part). Guess what? That wasn't it! My light is still on.
Okay, well I'm moving to a state with no emissions in a month, I'll just hope I don't get flagged for not having an inspection sticker. That's fine.
Except of course more things have to crop up. Moving forward to today. I've had the car for about a month. I'm five minutes away from work when I notice my car has a HARD pull to the right(usually it has a tiny pull to the left). Whod've thunk, I have a flat tire. Now, this is my fault. I knew I had a bubble on the tire but I don't have the time to take it in. Thankfully, I still had my snow tires in the back seat so I got a new full size tire on, but now I need at least two new tires, maybe four, plus a full set of lug nuts(they were stripped).
In summary.
In the month that I've had my car, I've spent:
$300 on the car itself
$275 on the set of studded snow tires
$80 on the registration
$200 on the cat(that I didn't need)
~$200+ on the tires in the next week.
And yeah, that's not a lot, but it's so, so frustrating. I'd like to have one week where I don't have to shell out numbers in the few hundreds for one bill or another. One week it's rent, the next week it's the credit card that I had to take out to fix my truck, the next week it's car insurance, and the one week I get to breathe(next week!) something happens like I blow a tire.
It's part of being an adult, I get it. It's not like I'm actively sinking. But just because I have to deal with it, and I know how to deal with it, doesn't mean it doesn't really, really suck.
Light Rain then Clearing Overnight
