About a month and a half ago, I bought a car, a 1996 Chrysler Concorde wih a 3.5 liter V-6 out of a 1997 Dodge Intrepid, which was the same car except for a different nose and tail and a non-premium interior.
I walked on to the lot where the local body shop displayed bargain-basement cars that they bought at auction to supplement their apparently meager income as an actual body shop. This baby caught my eye like a well-dressed hooker at Hunt's Point. Sleek, black and very, very sexy. Smooth, rich leather interior, computer-controlled everything, big, fat, road-gripped tires mounted on sparkly alloy rims. Mmmmmmm. So, I picked her up. And, like a hooker from Hunt's Point might do, she's been bleeding me dry every since. What's worse is, no amount of polishing up will change the simple fact that she is an absolute whore.
Every lightbulb over the last month has blown out and been replaced. The cruise control stopped working, but it's working now, so troubleshooting is impossible. It even had a component failure, a Manifold Tuning Solenoid, that the dealer said "should never fail. Never seen one fail. Never replaced one. Pretty strange." But wait, there's more.
Changed the spark plugs with premium Bosch Platinums. Changed the wires. Replaced the ignition coil and the two upper oxygen sensors (there are four!!! on this bitch) and cleaned the throttle bodies. Replaced hard and soft hoses, removed and cleaned the Powertrain Control Module (the computer that controls the engine,) the Body Computer. Spent $1400 replacing all three catalytic convertors, $350 replacing the lower O2 sensors and another $657 getting ripped off by another mechanic for "troubleshooting." And I STILL have a Check Engine light on the dash which means, you guessed it, I CAN'T HAVE THE CAR INSPECTED.
I am an idiot. For $3500, I could have easily bought a Honda that would have lasted me ten more years. But, at the time I bought this car, I didn' have $3500. I had $1000: that's what I had. So, in six weeks, I've spect $600 a week on repairs.
Now, the above doesn't address the late-shifting tranny (no, this has nothing to do with my gay piece from yesterday) or the squeaky noise coming from the driver's side front wheel. And it only occured to me today to check the parking brake which ALSO DOESN'T WORK which means, you guessed it, I CAN'T HAVE THE CAR INSPECTED.
Garsh. Still, I love her. She kicks me when I'm down, takes my retirement money and still, I can't set fire to her. Wait just a minute . . . sounds a little like my taste in womyns. Ha, ha. LOL.
It's because I don't want to lose in this competition between me and the car fates. Oddly, I get my Honda back in about two weeks and this will be a non-issue, sort of, except, what the hell do I do with it? Can't sell a car you can't inspect. Sigh. I should be a Good Jew and pretend I know nothing about things mechanical. That really would be best.
