I have replies to write to people regarding my depression post. It’s slow going. But it’ll get done.
Last week we spent roughly $1,300 on repairs between our two cars. It was painful and only partially planned. Thank EFFING GAWD they are both PAID OFF.
Bob made his final car payment in December. He decided to finally get his rear bumper fixed that has been damaged for over three years—before he even met me. It was a parking lot accident that was deemed a 50/50 accident (that totally was NOT) so he’d been putting it off because he didn’t want to pay to get it fixed. But he figured now that he officially owns his car he’d finally get it fixed. He put it through his car insurance so it would just be the cost of his deductible ($500). The insurance adjuster estimated it should cost a little over $800 to fix. When the repair shop pulled the old bumper off, they found a lot more damage underneath that drove the cost up to almost $1,600. They also discovered that the wheel liners for the rear wheels were missing, causing the back end to fill up with snow and crud on the road. Lovely. That ended up being a $10 part and an easy fix. But they figure that after a rear-end accident before that was fixed at some other place—that place replaced the rear bumper and didn’t bother putting the wheel liners back on. Oh great. But now Bob’s car has a shiny new rear bumper and wheel liners and all is right in the world.
While his car was in the shop, he was driving my car to work all week. On that Friday, he was out picking up lunch for himself and others at work and one of my tires blew out—completely SHREDDED. He was close enough to his destination so he made it to a parking lot with the car, and ended up calling someone from work to come pick him up. The car sat until after work when another coworker went back with him to help him change the tire—I have a full-size spare! Easy Fix!……..Or not. Apparently my tires require a “key stone” to remove one or more of the lugs that was nowhere to be found at the time so the tire could not be changed right then. My car sat in the parking lot over night. Willy knew where to find said “key stone” so he and Bob went back on Saturday morning and were able to put the spare tire on—which promptly fell flat—it’s been sitting in my trunk untouched for eight years. They rolled across the street to the gas station and then headed over to Costco and bought NEW! TIRES! for my precious Jetta. The tires were the original tires after all. They had 62,000 miles on them. It was time for new ones anyway. Shiny! New! Tires!
When they got home, I was looking at the invoice and noticed a note. One of the wheels couldn’t be balanced because it had been damaged from “grinding on the road” and needed to be replaced. Nobody at Costco bothered to MENTION THIS WHEN THEY PICKED UP THE CAR, so it’s a good thing I actually read the invoice. Willy decided to handle it right away so as not to damage my Shiny! New! Tire! (My father-in-law takes good care of me and my car.) He located a wheel at an auto part store and went to get it taken care of. The guy at the auto part store looked things over and said the wheel wasn’t damaged, the tire was warped. Excuse me? BACK TO COSTCO! They sold us a defective tire! The guy at Costco took things apart and said, no, the tire is fine, the wheel IS DAMAGED. WTF? But if you get a new wheel, we’ll put it on for you free of charge.
RUNNING IN CIRCLES!
So we had to order a wheel from Volkswagen…and wait for it to come in…and go pick it up…in St Louis Park…which ended up being the WRONG TYPE OF WHEEL…So we have to order a different one.
And in the meantime…a DIFFERENT TIRE WENT FLAT DUE TO A FAULTY VALVE. That Costco had to fix/replace/whatever.
MY CAR IS CURSED.
As if I don’t hate driving enough as it is.
I am probably never going to be comfortable driving my car ever again because I am never going to trust that my tires are safe to drive on even after everything is supposedly fixed.
We’re going to Burnsville on Sunday for Hunter’s birthday. I’m pretty sure we’ll be taking Bob’s car.
—
 |
Jane Says Jane’s Addiction |