Monday, January 21, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
The Winter Break Car Curse Strikes Again!
Some of you might be familiar with our bad luck with vehicles during winter break over the past several years. In case you’re not, here's a quick review:
Winter break 2003: Vince's car (the infamous purple Chevy Cavalier) was parked in front of our house. During a snow storm another car came slipping and sliding down the hill and crashed into the car. End result: a totaled Cavalier and a rush to buy the Jetta before we went back to school.
Winter break 2005: Two years to the day later, we were enjoying our first real night off from parenthood; we went to see a movie while our friend Sarah watched Miles. After the movie went out in the pouring down rain to find our Rodeo had been broken into. We drove home from the theater with a plastic garbage bag over the passenger side window--or rather, where a window once was. Some of you might recall that the worst part of this event was that Vince's iPod was stolen out of the car. End result: a new car window, a new iPod, new cell phones, and confirmation that one should ALWAYS park in a well lit area of the parking lot.
Winter break 2006: We gave ourselves a huge scare by bouncing off the guardrail on Blewett Pass as we journeyed over the mountains for Christmas festivities. Thankfully no one was hurt and, other than being a bit shaken up by the whole experience, we got away unscathed. A couple days later, however, we were not so lucky as we hit some ice in Kirkland and ended up off the road in some shrubbery. Again, the important thing was everyone was okay...except the Rodeo. End result: a couple weeks of a rental car and a ginourmous repair bill later--thank God for insurance!--we had our car back.
At this point we started to consider our track record of winter break car misfortunes as an irritating, yet somewhat comical, series of coincidences. Then we got to this year.
Winter break 2007: Two days before Christmas the Rodeo started making a terrible clicking sound which got progressively worse over a 4 mile stretch of I-405. No warning lights came on, but the car died as we were getting off the freeway. The AAA tow-truck driver was extremely friendly, but not too reassuring as we loaded up the car and took it to the service station. There we were told that "making a terrible noise" and "it just died" are two phrases you never want to hear in the same sentence when talking about a vehicle. They wouldn't even off-load the car and sent us directly to a nearby repair shop. We dropped the car off, left the keys in the slot, and waited. And waited. And waited. (Car issues, by the way, are worsened over the holiday season by all the days off.) Finally, two days after Christmas we got the call. The news was not good....a seized engine that would cost more to replace than the car was worth. We spent the next couple days fighting the sick feelings in our stomachs and deciding what to do. Eventually we decided we needed to replace the Rodeo and need to get it done before we headed back to school. The silver lining here is that the last weekend of the year is a great weekend to go car shopping....dealers are really trying to get rid of stock. End result: we now have a silver 2007 Kia Sorento that is very safe, fully under warranty, and fun to drive.
Winter break 2003: Vince's car (the infamous purple Chevy Cavalier) was parked in front of our house. During a snow storm another car came slipping and sliding down the hill and crashed into the car. End result: a totaled Cavalier and a rush to buy the Jetta before we went back to school.
Winter break 2005: Two years to the day later, we were enjoying our first real night off from parenthood; we went to see a movie while our friend Sarah watched Miles. After the movie went out in the pouring down rain to find our Rodeo had been broken into. We drove home from the theater with a plastic garbage bag over the passenger side window--or rather, where a window once was. Some of you might recall that the worst part of this event was that Vince's iPod was stolen out of the car. End result: a new car window, a new iPod, new cell phones, and confirmation that one should ALWAYS park in a well lit area of the parking lot.
Winter break 2006: We gave ourselves a huge scare by bouncing off the guardrail on Blewett Pass as we journeyed over the mountains for Christmas festivities. Thankfully no one was hurt and, other than being a bit shaken up by the whole experience, we got away unscathed. A couple days later, however, we were not so lucky as we hit some ice in Kirkland and ended up off the road in some shrubbery. Again, the important thing was everyone was okay...except the Rodeo. End result: a couple weeks of a rental car and a ginourmous repair bill later--thank God for insurance!--we had our car back.
At this point we started to consider our track record of winter break car misfortunes as an irritating, yet somewhat comical, series of coincidences. Then we got to this year.
Winter break 2007: Two days before Christmas the Rodeo started making a terrible clicking sound which got progressively worse over a 4 mile stretch of I-405. No warning lights came on, but the car died as we were getting off the freeway. The AAA tow-truck driver was extremely friendly, but not too reassuring as we loaded up the car and took it to the service station. There we were told that "making a terrible noise" and "it just died" are two phrases you never want to hear in the same sentence when talking about a vehicle. They wouldn't even off-load the car and sent us directly to a nearby repair shop. We dropped the car off, left the keys in the slot, and waited. And waited. And waited. (Car issues, by the way, are worsened over the holiday season by all the days off.) Finally, two days after Christmas we got the call. The news was not good....a seized engine that would cost more to replace than the car was worth. We spent the next couple days fighting the sick feelings in our stomachs and deciding what to do. Eventually we decided we needed to replace the Rodeo and need to get it done before we headed back to school. The silver lining here is that the last weekend of the year is a great weekend to go car shopping....dealers are really trying to get rid of stock. End result: we now have a silver 2007 Kia Sorento that is very safe, fully under warranty, and fun to drive.
We’re considering parking both vehicles in the garage next winter break and only using public transportation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)