Bad Luck
We've had the worst luck. Well, actually, it could have been worse. No matter how bad things get, things can always get worse. But the car situation has been really unfortunate.
Our car was having a little trouble, but still functioned ok. Every once in a while - after pressing on the gas from a stop - the car would lag for a second before it started working. I called a mechanic and scheduled an appointment for right after our home inspection. I wasn't particularly worried about it because I was blissfully ignorant of what the problem was. The mechanic diagnosed a transmission problem and referred us to a specialist. It was getting late; we headed back to our hotel.
On the way home, the car's performance deteriorated very quickly. We speculate that the mechanic's diagnostic test may have pushed the transmission over the edge. The car had a particularly hard time going uphill. Not good considering Pittsburgh terrain. At times, I could only get the car to go 10 mph. The only good thing about our drive back to the hotel is that traffic was really bad, so at least we didn't cause traffic problems. This was on Monday, Dec. 23rd.
Tuesday morning of December 24th was our appointment to meet the mortgage advisor to submit our mortgage application. We got there by taking two buses, along with about a mile of walking through biting cold wind.
Because of the holidays, we couldn't take the car to a transmission specialist until Thursday, Dec. 26th. Andrew managed--just barely--to drive it to the shop rather than getting it towed. His plan to take a bus to the office backfired. The bus didn't come. He waited at the bus stop for an hour, until the next bus came. Talking to other people on the bus, he wasn't the only one who had been left out in the cold. It was 10 degrees out. Makes me shudder just to think about it.
Later that day, the transmission specialist called to say we would need to replace the entire transmission. Considering that the cost of putting in a new transmission exceeds the value of the car, it really didn't sound worth fixing. Initially. But he also suggested we could put in a transmission from a used car rather than a new one. Still expensive relative to the value of the car, but cheaper. We thought about it. We seriously considered buying a car to replace it. (We were already planning on buying a second car in the not-too-distant future anyway. And planning on replacing this car as well, although not for about a year.)
But there were three serious complications to the idea of buying a replacement car:
1) If we buy a car, we wouldn't be able to register it until after we got driver's licenses. Which we couldn't do until we could establish residency in Pennsylvania. Which we couldn't do until we had a place to stay other than a hotel. Fabulous.
2) Not fixing the car reduces the car's value to nothing, literally. If we fix it, we could use it for a little while and then sell it for about the same price. We'd lose less money if we got it working before selling/discarding it.
3) We'd have to use cash on a car purchase. Mortgage lenders don't like to see people take out other loans while trying to close on a house; nor do they like to see significant changes in bank account balances. Also, the used car market is grossly inflated right now, so a decent used car costs a pretty penny.
We chose to have the used transmission put in. It would take a few days to get the used transmission delivered to the specialist. And deliveries only count business days. The transmission was delivered on Wednesday. The transmission specialist started working on our car on Thursday. We got a call saying that we'd need another part. (Some part that holds the transmission in place was broken.) He couldn't finish the job until he had that part; delivery would take a day or two. Another weekend without a car.
Our car's breakdown had terrible timing. Christmas and New Years account for four days of our car collecting dust and not being serviced. And two weekends consumed another four days. So there have been eight days of the car being out of commission just because it picked the worst day to die. The rest of the time was waiting for parts and the work actually getting gone.
Two weeks without a car is not fun. In the meantime, we've been creative with our transportation needs: we've been walking for anything nearby, Andrew's been biking to the office, we've been using the bus system, and we've rented a zip car. One day, Andrew tried unsuccessfully to fix a flat tire in 15 degree weather (he used the spare inner tube just before leaving Utah and hadn't replaced it yet, and the rubber cement in the patch kit was dried out).
We've had some fun in the meantime, despite our bad luck. For example, we took a bus to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. And we saw the movie "Frozen" (and connected with the characters trekking through the frigid landscape). And we went to the Carnegie Museum of Science and Industry.
I'm just happy that we got our car back!
I think we deserve some good luck now.
Our car was having a little trouble, but still functioned ok. Every once in a while - after pressing on the gas from a stop - the car would lag for a second before it started working. I called a mechanic and scheduled an appointment for right after our home inspection. I wasn't particularly worried about it because I was blissfully ignorant of what the problem was. The mechanic diagnosed a transmission problem and referred us to a specialist. It was getting late; we headed back to our hotel.
On the way home, the car's performance deteriorated very quickly. We speculate that the mechanic's diagnostic test may have pushed the transmission over the edge. The car had a particularly hard time going uphill. Not good considering Pittsburgh terrain. At times, I could only get the car to go 10 mph. The only good thing about our drive back to the hotel is that traffic was really bad, so at least we didn't cause traffic problems. This was on Monday, Dec. 23rd.
Tuesday morning of December 24th was our appointment to meet the mortgage advisor to submit our mortgage application. We got there by taking two buses, along with about a mile of walking through biting cold wind.
Because of the holidays, we couldn't take the car to a transmission specialist until Thursday, Dec. 26th. Andrew managed--just barely--to drive it to the shop rather than getting it towed. His plan to take a bus to the office backfired. The bus didn't come. He waited at the bus stop for an hour, until the next bus came. Talking to other people on the bus, he wasn't the only one who had been left out in the cold. It was 10 degrees out. Makes me shudder just to think about it.
Later that day, the transmission specialist called to say we would need to replace the entire transmission. Considering that the cost of putting in a new transmission exceeds the value of the car, it really didn't sound worth fixing. Initially. But he also suggested we could put in a transmission from a used car rather than a new one. Still expensive relative to the value of the car, but cheaper. We thought about it. We seriously considered buying a car to replace it. (We were already planning on buying a second car in the not-too-distant future anyway. And planning on replacing this car as well, although not for about a year.)
But there were three serious complications to the idea of buying a replacement car:
1) If we buy a car, we wouldn't be able to register it until after we got driver's licenses. Which we couldn't do until we could establish residency in Pennsylvania. Which we couldn't do until we had a place to stay other than a hotel. Fabulous.
2) Not fixing the car reduces the car's value to nothing, literally. If we fix it, we could use it for a little while and then sell it for about the same price. We'd lose less money if we got it working before selling/discarding it.
3) We'd have to use cash on a car purchase. Mortgage lenders don't like to see people take out other loans while trying to close on a house; nor do they like to see significant changes in bank account balances. Also, the used car market is grossly inflated right now, so a decent used car costs a pretty penny.
We chose to have the used transmission put in. It would take a few days to get the used transmission delivered to the specialist. And deliveries only count business days. The transmission was delivered on Wednesday. The transmission specialist started working on our car on Thursday. We got a call saying that we'd need another part. (Some part that holds the transmission in place was broken.) He couldn't finish the job until he had that part; delivery would take a day or two. Another weekend without a car.
Our car's breakdown had terrible timing. Christmas and New Years account for four days of our car collecting dust and not being serviced. And two weekends consumed another four days. So there have been eight days of the car being out of commission just because it picked the worst day to die. The rest of the time was waiting for parts and the work actually getting gone.
Two weeks without a car is not fun. In the meantime, we've been creative with our transportation needs: we've been walking for anything nearby, Andrew's been biking to the office, we've been using the bus system, and we've rented a zip car. One day, Andrew tried unsuccessfully to fix a flat tire in 15 degree weather (he used the spare inner tube just before leaving Utah and hadn't replaced it yet, and the rubber cement in the patch kit was dried out).
We've had some fun in the meantime, despite our bad luck. For example, we took a bus to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. And we saw the movie "Frozen" (and connected with the characters trekking through the frigid landscape). And we went to the Carnegie Museum of Science and Industry.
I'm just happy that we got our car back!
I think we deserve some good luck now.
Oy! sounds rough. I'm glad it's back. Good luck with the good luck. You guys deserve it. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm also glad that we got the car back the day before the "polar vortex" brought the temperatures into the negatives. One day later would have been much worse.
ReplyDelete