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(sigh) I was going to write a post today saying how neat it is to own a new car, and one that gets exceptionally good gas mileage at that. Instead, I’m forced to say this: sometimes people are just dumb. My faithful Plymouth Acclaim, Fable, has been on a downward path recently. I’m sad to say that while Fable has been reliable and trustworthy since I got it, in the last week or two it has been giving me trouble. Ethan and I discovered that the trouble was that the alternator is failing, and there are other things wrong as well. The mechanic quoted about $550 to fix everything (in addition to the $100 for diagnosing the problems) and I decided that was too much to pay to fix a car that originally cost $650.
I had been mulling over the idea of getting a new(er) car, but mostly in that “wouldn’t it be nice” sort of way. Well, this development led Ethan and me to the conclusion that a new car would probably be a good option. I found out that James can fix Fable for much less than the mechanic, and might be willing to buy the car off of us since it is in far better condition than his latest vehicle, so we went ahead and bought a new car. A 2001 Prius to be exact. Neato. It is a very fun car to drive, so long as you can keep your eyes on the road and off of the little LCD screen that is telling you how much gas you’re using and what exactly is making your wheels turn. It was very neat until this morning (we got the car last night) when the car failed to turn on. Boo. Boo says I.
I called the dealer (after waiting an hour and a half for them to open, yes, I was very late to work) and they said that it looked like, after replacing the battery, some dolt replaced it again, with the original battery. Arrr. So they ended up driving out to my apartment and traded me for some loaner car (which is still much nicer than Fable, but still, I did pay for the Prius, damnit) while they replace the battery and then test to make sure there isn’t anything ‘funny’ going on.
Basically I don’t get to drive my car again until at least tomorrow afternoon. I think they should give me a free gas card or something. I somehow think I’ll just end up with not having the car I bought for two days, combined with lost earnings from this morning. Suck.
On a completely random note, Nissan Maximas (the car I have on loan) are kind of nice to drive, if a bit noisy.