I have had my fair share of cars that seem great, but end up being a total lemon. I am not quite sure how I always seem to pick out the ones that will end up having all the problems, but it pretty much follows suit with most things around here.
A few years ago we had our Ford Explorer stolen right from in front of my sister's house, which was odd because Waverly is such a safe community! The naughty kids who stole it decided to to joy ride into several parked car, including an unmarked police car, they tore up the 4WD and ripped out the suspension. This was a pretty major blow. The car was actually paid off , which is an unheard thing in my life, so I didn't have full coverage on it. So there I was, completely out a vehicle to safely drive my kids around in. I ended up getting a cute little Jeep Liberty. It was perfect! Olivia could drive it when I would let her practice and it fit our family nicely.
I drove that little Jeep for quite a while until last winter. Olivia was desperately in need of braces. She had a tooth that not came down because there was no space in her little mouth. She had teeth turned in so it was always difficult for her to chew her food, she basically had a hot mess going on in there! We had a consultation with the orthodontist about how much it would cost. The insurance her dad is required to carry was going to cover about 1/5 the total cost. Her dad is supposed to pay 75% after I pay the first $250 for any medical cost through the year, but he told me she wouldn't die without them so they were not medically necessary. So I was faced with a decision about how we would pay for these braces. I decided I needed to get rid of our cute little Jeep and get a cheap car with no car payment. It didn't take me long and I found an old Grand Prix for $1100! Can't beat that! So we got it, got the braces and said good buy to our little silver bullet Jeep:(
It wasn't long after we got the car that it was missing (miss firing), then I noticed the floor was wet, then there was a noise coming from somewhere, had horrible power steering so it's impossible for Olivia to practice driving, windshield wipers that don't work on the drivers side and the battery connection was bad and requires the battery cables to be wiggled occasionally (all but when its sub zero temps, then the battery just goes dead). My son the little junior mechanic found the air intake thing was broke, so doing what any rational woman would do, I taped it! The tape held for a little while, but my brother eventually wrapped some hose around it and looked at me like I was a nut for taping it, but my motto is, "if ya can't fix it with cardboard or duck-tape, it's not getting fixed!", plus, its not worth putting a dime into. After that incident I realized it had some kind of leak, there was a lake on the floor! 3" of water on the floor! So every time it rains we have a lake in our car for days.
Here we are now a year or so after we bought this lovely little car, in the midst of a horrible cold winter, a daughter that is so sick she can hardly walk by bedtime, about to move in the freezing cold, needing furniture and tons of things for the new house, while kids need to be driven to school...and the battery is dead! Someone call the junkyard, I am going to need to squeeze some lemonade with the car crusher!LIKE OUR FACEBOOK PAGE!!!!
