Our new transportation.

It's been a pretty busy week.

Sandra and I have been in the process of getting a loan to buy a used car. It has been a roller coaster ride of emotions for her. We had hoped to get a line of credit at first, but were declined. The guy at the bank then ran the numbers for a loan. Well, he was pretty rude and short when dealing with Sandra that day, and that just had her in tears.

The long and the short of it is that we wound up trying at another bank, with no luck, so we went back and took the loan offered at our own. It was a little more each month than we wanted to pay, but still within our means. When we went in the second and third times (We had to go back to pick up the cheque for the dealership.) he was much nicer to Sandra.

From test drive to plating the car was a week, almost exactly. I don't think I've ever made a decision of that magnitude quite so quickly, but we really did need a newer car. The cavalier was thirteen years old, and things were starting to get expensive to keep her running. After she broke down on us in Kingston, Sandra never felt comfortable driving again.

My Dad really wants the old car. He does not care for the van that my mother has, and my brother has it half of the time. If the car can be made to pass the safety, he feels it will be perfect for the driving that he does. Dad seldom leaves the property, and never goes long distance. Or at least, he very rarely travels long distance.

Sandra is thrilled with our new car. We bought a 2002 Pontiac Sunfire GTX. It is a little more loaded than we really need, but the price was good and the mileage even better. It only had 66 thousand kilometres on the odometer. It rides well, and most importantly, has no rust. Sandra can drive in comfort and confidence again.

Maintaining a vehicle

My wife and I are having the exhaust on our car looked at tomorrow. It hasn't been right since we had most of the components changed a few years back.
We went to visit her uncle shortly after it was done, and he took one look and told us it wasn't right. Various pipes were hanging way to low. We would scrape just going over the curb at the bank. On our way back from a family gathering, the catalytic converter decided to let go on us. The shop that did the repair after that didn't hang anything right either.
I miss the days when cars were built to be reliable, and easily repaired, the exhaust being a prime example. Years ago, a car would have the exhaust hung by at least four u-bolts, and the pipes were clamped together. It was strong, and you didn't have to weld all of the pieces together. In the current configuration, if one part goes, the others might go.
My father used to keep the family vehicles running. He would occasionally have to replace or rebuild the engine. We would go out to the woods and get some poles to put up a tripod. In his prime, he would have the old engine out and the new one in within four hours. Every part was fixable by anyone with a few decent tools and some practical experience. Now, he won't touch the things. Ever since front wheel drive and fuel injection became common.
I tried to replace the spark plugs a while back. The last one broke off on me, and I had to pay my mechanic to remove it. Since then I have refused to do anything myself.
I dream of designing a car that is simple and reliable. I don't care if I can't do work on it myself, but it should at least be inexpensive to have it done, when it is needed. There are a lot of specific things I would have to design into it, to suit my needs. Basically, I think I need to have a talk with General Motors or Ford.