Vehicles Archives - The Shiny Butter Blog

Part Three of a three-part series:

After that icky experience, I re-worded a few things in my craigslist ad, adding- in addition to what I thought was full disclosure already- some totally upfront but perhaps trivial details that might keep any more lowballers away, such as “The leather shift knob and steering wheel are worn” and “There are scuff marks on the headliner over the cargo area- it’s station wagon, after all” and “There is a broken area on one speaker in the driver’s side door.”

Cosmetically, Blaze was nearly in what might be called “excellent” condition- I would certainly give her B plus because that Blaze was a darned handsome car that stopped traffic when she had the “For Sale” sign in her windows. Of course, I listed in the ad her other excellent attributes, such as the turbo (which I will assure you I miss), heated seats (you haven’t lived until you’ve had heated seats), automatic seats with lumbar support, a fairly recent timing belt change, pretty good tires (though Debbie Downer said that they were worn- I guess because they weren’t brand-new, bless her heart), luggage rack, sun roof, etc, etc, etc.

But just to be clear, the last statement in the ad read, “This is a good-looking, comfortable car that has aged well and I recognize that it has some needed maintenance. It is being sold ‘as is.’ I don’t want to investigate or fix anything and I already know that this lovely 13 year-old car is not perfect. Just come and see if you like the car and make an offer. I’ve loved this car, but she’s ready to move on. I am willing to look at your offer- just don’t be ridiculous.” I figured that would keep the riff-raff away.

And it did. Early the next morning, I received an e-mail that said something like, “I have the cash for what you’re asking for the car. When can I come look at the car? I work between 10 and 7.” He came by at 8:15, I tried to explain Blaze’s cosmetic flaws, he thanked me for my honesty, said he didn’t care about the cosmetic issues, that the car was obviously in great shape and that he wanted to take her for a ride because that was the exact kind of car he used to have and was looking for. In listening to her idle, he asked if I had added any fuel injection cleaner, but I had not. He said that would certainly help the idle. He drove her, said her loved her, asked to take her by the Auto Zone to run a diagnostic test on that blasted “check engine” light that had come back on, to which I said, “Of course,” and then I waited.

He came back with two sheets of paper listing two parts that needed to be replaced, totalling $250 and asked “Would you be willing to take that off the price?” I replied, “Yes,” we rode to his bank together, he withdrew the cash and gave it to me, we had the title notarized, came back to my house, I took the tags off of Blaze and gave her new owner the keys, and he made it to work by ten.

Now this was the buyer we were looking for, a practical person with a good eye, not an alarmist, smitten yet still in possession of realism. He had the energy and his own set of mechanical skills to put that TLC back into the relationship. I know that Blaze will be happy and I will wave from my little nameless sedan, lounging in my air-conditioned, nothing-to-shift, no-heavy-clutch-to-wear-out-my-left-knee living room of a driver’s seat.

Oh, we’ll miss each other, alright. Truthfully, I know I’ll miss her more than she’ll miss me because she’ll be getting all that attention, but like I said, who knows what the house dress of a car will turn out like? What with a little paint, and all…

Part Two of a three-part series:

When I listed Blaze for sale, the first person to be really interested was a young fella who wanted it for his growing family. Oh, they were crazy about the car and their decision-making was based on pure emotion, I think. But they were at that stage in life where young families sometimes are- they were dependent on his dad for guidance and a good deal of manna. Well, the dad looked under the hood and said so-and-so was wrong with the car- and it sounded bad. He would put in a maximum amount for the car, not a penny more. Junior decided that he would pitch in a little more of his own and Dad somewhat reluctantly agreed. At the time I felt I’d better go along with it, that as bad as things were, I’d better take the money real quick-like and say, “Thanks.”

Then I had a dream that night that Junior was not the one. But we proceeded with the negotiating until one Sunday when we were down to “I’ll meet you at the bank at nine tomorrow.” We were so certain that the deal was going down in the morning that when another couple came by to see the car, I practically talked them out of it. This, after my dream- and I know better than to ignore these things.

Junior and his pretty wife came by one more time a little later that Sunday afternoon, realizing that his wife had not yet even driven the car in all of the excitement! They were gone longer than expected. Fortunately for Junior, I guess, he listened to his gut and took the car by his dad’s for him to actually test drive it himself. Naturally, Dad found something else big wrong with the car while driving it- and so he pulled the funding. The deal was off.

I was pretty down about it, but expected it, of course. It was my goal to sell Blaze by Monday, and this was not progress. I was also feeling down about that this stranger’s doomsday assessment of my car. So much so that I was wondering if I would ever be able to sell the car and if I could even do it with a clear conscious, knowing what I knew after the drive-by appraisal by Junior’s dad.

Then I had a little talk with myself and I said, “Self! You can’t take his word for it! Who is he to listen to the car once and drive it once and give you a complete and accurate diagnosis? He may be right, but he may be very wrong. And besides, Junior was not right for Blaze- you knew that!”

So I re-posted the ad.

The second person who showed serious interest in the car was a woman who was clearly a glass-half-empty type. And apparently she was looking for a new car at a very used car price, because ol’ 13 year-old Blaze was losing points and dollar value by the minute with Debbie Downer at the negotiating helm. She actually did a little, ahem, homework of her own after looking at and test-driving the car and came up with a price that made me think that maybe she’s warming up her skills to go over to the Cadillac dealer and lowball them on a nice 2012 Escalade.

Anyway, she left Blaze and me feeling bad. And I had to have another little talk with myself to shake it off, telling myself, “Who does she think she is, offering me fully half of what I’m asking for Blaze?” I said, “Self, you don’t have to stoop to her level- she’s out of her gourd, that one! Blaze is a fine car and you know it- you just keep looking!”

Part three is next!

Part One of a three-part series:

Well, it looks like the blazing red hot rod disguised as a family car is out and a nonchalant little sedan whose color goes by the name of “heather mist” is in. (Why, why, why the raging trend for barely-metallic, shapeless cars, anyway? They must outnumber the descendants of Abraham by now.)

Here I was, finally used to driving a red car when I swore for years that driving a red car was beneath me, somehow too typical, too expected. But this car was no burgundy, no cherry red, no cranberry or claret. This car was (roll your Rs here) Rrrrreally Rrrred. Blinding, actually. And at first, I was a little embarrassed about it and said, “But it’s so flashy” to which a friend replied, “Do you think you’re not?” And I’d never thought of that. All this time I thought I was blending in, that people hardly noticed me. I was thinking all along that my style was just something I worked on at home, without realizing that leaving the house like that means that someone’s gonna notice me.

I got used to the red car. A stylish station wagon with that WOW red paint and turbo, too. I’m sure that people on the road don’t expect to be passed with such speed by a station wagon rattling their windows while flying by them at 80 mph. A heavy and low car, driving more like a sports car than a family car, hugging the road with its sporty tires and its turbo-self. People said that car was “so me.” All the while the car was smokin’ hot and yet mom-like at the same time.

So I had to break it to people to look for me now sneaking around in a non-descript silver sedan. One friend said, “No!” when I told her, like the Edvard Munch screaming guy.

But here’s the deal. The plain sedan has 60,000 less miles than “Blaze.” The a/c has no leaks- and I cannot conceal my utter elation here. The cruise control works. The “check engine light” does not come on periodically. The driver’s side door stay is not arthritic-sounding. And frankly, even if boring and an automatic to boot (It’s like the car just drives itself!), it’s got what it takes right now- I’d grown tired of investigating this and buying a part for that. Oh, and the price. Let’s just say the price puts this new-to-me car in the “cream puff” category- though of course the car actually looks more like a dust bunny than a cream puff.

Blaze, though, I knew she was upset with me. She was saying things like, “Why don’t you love me like you used to?” I tried to explain it, that people get tired, that people get busy with other things, that relationships are hard work. And I told her that frankly, I knew she was ready to move on, ready to find someone to give her that TLC that I no longer had the energy to provide. But when I came home with the petite, unassuming silver sedan with the peeling clear coat, she said to me, “You’re leaving me for that??” But not so deep down, we both knew it was the right thing to do. It just hurt a little.

So, I suppose in my attempt to keep the universal vibrations a’ vibrating, I’ve up-heaved my life of flashing around town in a car that was hot looking for a mom car and pretty spicy to drive, too, and replaced it with the house dress of cars, the small silver sedan. But sometimes, you’ve just got to get up and change into something new, you know? You never know what you can do with a house dress, right? I mean, look what Scarlett did with those curtains. And ever the optimist, my mom did say to me, “Well, darlin’, you know you could paint the car…”

Part Two is next!

Turns out the bumpers on my car are hollow.

I guess I should have known that? It’s a Volvo, so maybe I expected something more when I bumped into the back of a pick-up truck the other week. It was a tiny little accident. I was at a light, the light turned green, the truck in front of me went, I went, then the truck stopped, and I did not. It was just that quick- and I was going all of maybe 5 mph.

My front bumper was crushed like a styrofoam cup.

The square hole that the truck’s trailer hitch made in my bumper- revealing a cavern inside that hole- was evidence that the bumper was of no use in protecting me or the front of my car. Apparently, it’s just for looks. So I’m now thinking I could have just not had those bumpers and been fitting into smaller parking spaces all this time.

After the little tiny collision and the trailer hitch popping right through the bumper like a pin in a balloon, the car then slid on under the back of that truck and the hood of the car got all crunched up. Then the plastic Volvo grill fell off. A whopping $2800 in damage was the final cost of my 5 mph fender bender.

You learn so much when these things happen! I learned that if the damage is under $1800 (in my state, at least), the guilty party does not get points on their license and does not get to see their insurance get jacked up. But of course, having to get not only a new bumper, but also a new hood (the damaged one couldn’t be fixed!) and a new front assembly something-or-other and a bunch of matching atomic fire ball red paint means more than $1800 in damage occurred and that means that my spotless driving record (honest!) and my low insurance rates for driving a 12 year old station wagon are all a memory now.

I now realize that if my bumper had done what it I thought it was put on the car to do, and I had ended up suffering a mere bumper repair after my little tiny collision- meaning the damage would have totaled less than $1800- then I wouldn’t be looking at three years of monetary punishment for a non-society threatening traffic misstep. If I’d had an actual bumper and not a pretend one on the car, the damage would have been as minor as the accident instead of resulting in a repair that cost more than half of what the car is worth and gave my insurance company a raise.

Should I bill Volvo for this?

(Oh, and by the way- the truck I bumped into: not even a little bit of paint on that trailer hitch. It appears that my bumper offered no resistance whatsoever. It was like it threw itself at that trailer hitch.)

The Shiny Butter Blog

Part 3- Blaze: The Conclusion

Part 2- People Come To See Blaze

Part 1- I Decide To Sell My Car Named Blaze

My Worthless Bumper