A Girl And Her Car (A Love Story)

This story starts like many love stories do.  A bad relationship, and a dream for something better.

Ok but seriously, things were bad.  The car I was driving was a 2003 Jetta.  It got me from point A to point B, and we had paid it off so it was a car with no car payments.  No car payments makes it hard to walk away to car payments again.  For about the last year, things were starting to go south with Jetta.  Last fall/winter it started to leak.  If it froze outside, there would be a layer of ice on the inside of the windshield, as well as the outside.  Same with the back window.  Also, the trunk was leaking, so if I opened it to put stuff in there was like a layer of dew, except not, in the trunk.  Frosty mornings sucked, but thankfully in Oregon, where we live, we get more rain than super cold/ice.

Then maybe 6 months ago (give or take a month or so) it would not shift out of park.  I'd get in the car in the morning to go to to work and I was stuck.  I called the dealership we bought the car from and take it to for service for advice.  What did they tell me to do?  "Get out of the car and shake it.  That should release the locked gear."  Seriously?  How exactly does one shake a car enough to do that without being a superhero?  What I really had to do was let the car warm up for anywhere between 5-15 minutes.  Then my ongoing battle with the cup holders took a turn for the worse.  (For those of you not familiar with the cup holders of the 2003 Jetta-they were like praying mantis mandibles and held things not as well.  Also, if you are a music fan they were inconveniently located right in front of the radio.  You couldn't swap CDs or see what station you were on if you had a beverage.)  If I turned to sharp (or really turned at all) my precious cup of coffee would come tumbling out of the "holder."  And then, to add insult to injury, my passenger door stopped operating properly.  In the mornings I go out to my car with my work bag and put it on my passenger seat before I get in the car and go.  The door lock was not working correctly, my key fab wouldn't unlock it all the time.  I'd have to get in the car and open it from the inside.  And, on the days that I did that, it wouldn't lock with the key fab and I'd have to lock it, and then lock the car.

Obviously it was time to take the car to the shop for usual service and to see what was possessing it.  I told them everything it was doing (or not doing) and asked them to replace the batter in my key fab.  The next day when I picked up my car, they told me they couldn't get it to act up so maybe there wasn't really a problem.  And that there is no leak in my car or trunk.  But that they had done the usual service and replace the battery my key fab, and to call them if it acted up again.  I drive home, mostly confident in the service department.

The next morning, the Jetta is up to it's usually tricks.  They tell me to bring it back.  Again, they keep it over night and send me home with a car that they said was fine.  Oh, but the guy suggested that I check to see if my brake lights come on when I hit my brake, because if they don't it could be that my car isn't registering that the brake is on.  I ask him how I'm supposed to do that by myself (yes, I know I can have David help me but how is that feasible to do every morning?).  My confidence is rapidly dropping.

I tell David I'm not taking the car back again, even if it acts up.  Which it does.  My morning departure routine gets altered by 15 minutes allowing for time for the car to warm up.  Oh, and did I mention my key fob starts working; the key fab they put a new battery in?  David feels bad for me, he puts up with my complaining and offers me various cars.  But I am stubborn.  There is a specific car I want, and I stubbornly refuse to change my mind, insisting I'd rather drive Jetta until it falls apart (which at this point could be sooner rather than later).

So what car did I have my heart set on?  This:

2010 Dodge Charger (with a Hemi)

And so life went on.  Bad Jetta became the norm until one cool morning.  David was helping me load up the Jetta and I think he was kind of amazed what I had to do to get the car rolling in the morning.  Looking at it now, it had to be sort of comical, the way I would contort to open things or manage the coffee into the cup holder maneuver.  While I think he was impressed with my crazy morning skills, I do not believe David was impressed with Jetta.

To Be Continued....

~Emily