The biggest problem is the *&%@! honda civic. When we bought it, it had around 100k miles on it- which for a honda, usually means it's not even halfway through its life. I always figured the 110k dodge would give us more trouble- sad to say but I have very little faith in american-made cars. But no, the honda has been the one to give us all the trouble. But this is what we get for buying a car on craigslist. This is its third major break down since we bought it just over a year ago.
We were pulling out of our development on a saturday to run errands when all the sudden the engine died, as if it had no gas. In the middle of turning onto a very busy 45 mph street. We took up 3 lanes, just drifting... Fortunately no one was coming at the moment. We got out, pushed it back into our development, called a friend to help push it back to our house down the street, and called the tow truck. Turns out the honda doesn't have the right kind of coverage- only our durango gets free tows. So we agree to pay 80 bucks and wait for the tow truck. For 2 hours. Give up, call the tow company, they forgot to put our info into their queue. So we call another tow company. Wait an hour. They show up but it turns out they only take cash and we're 20 bucks short. By now the mechanic is only open for another 30 minutes, so we give up.
Monday (meaning Kenny is at work, and I'm in charge of the car situation even though I am clueless about cars, and the mechanic knows it), some friends in the ward help tow our car in. The mechanic (who replaced our whole radiator a few months ago) lets us know (and forgive me if I get this wrong, its all greek to me) the distributor cap, ignition coils and spark plugs all need replacing. On top of it the radiator reserve needed flushing, the timing belt was about to spontaneously combust, and the back tires are bare.
*sigh*
1400 dollars later... the mechanic promises us there is nothing else in that engine that could possibly need replacing. The next day, I get a call while kenny is on his way home from work. "Bad news". What could possibly go wrong now? Turns out the power window was stuck all the way down and would need a new regulator and motor (good thing we don't live somewhere that randomly pours rain every few days). But my wonderful husband decided he could take it on- and he did. 9 hours later (and he didn't swear once!) and we have a working window again.
So the civic can't possibly have anything wrong with it, right? Right, for now. No, it's the dang durango now- the latch on the trunk won't open without finagling. Then yesterday the check engine light came on it. I'm pretending I didn't notice it cause I honestly will break if we have one more car problem.
Things could have been much worse. We were lucky to not have been pulling out onto the road at a busier time (like school hours- we live across from a bus barn), and that we weren't going anywhere important. We're SO lucky to have very helpful family and friends without whom we probably would have pushed the civic off a cliff (unfortunately there aren't many cliffs in Houston, so maybe an alligator-infested swamp instead). And hooray for my wonderful husband who has had a crash course in cars this month and who saved us a lot of money by getting heavily involved.
If anyone wants to contribute to our "save morgan" fund, gifts will be accepted through paypal.;)
*morgan is the name of our civic, because he's an old black man like someone else we know and love.
And for getting through my rant, here is a picture of Daniel playing with his new sidewalk chalk:
2 comments:
oh, i'm sorry. we had a lot of problems wiht our civic this summer and had to put a lot of cash into it as well. given, it does have more miles on it. at any rate i am grateful for a handy husband too
Where did you hear that Hondas usually get more than 200k? We felt extremely blessed that our Honda Escort station wagon got around 160k before the engine died. We weren't expecting it to last as long as it did.
I'm sorry about the car troubles. Those unexpected expenses are stressful, even if you do have some cash saved. I hope your cars start behaving!
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