The cars you've owned (2009, gasket, idle, brakes)

[tvdxer]

What cars, both new and used, have you had the pride or shame of owning? Tell us a little about each of them.

I'm 25 years old and have owned (or practically owned) four cars.

My first car was a 1978 Buick Park Avenue. This was the car I drove when I first got my license in 2004 during the summer before my senior year of high school. The car was a hand-me-down from my mother, who bought it in 2000 for the princely sum of around $3,000. It was in good condition when she bought it and had less than 100,000 miles on it.

It was a bit old for my tastes, had "loud turning", and was on the verge of breaking down, but...I had a car! It got 15 mpg, but with gas at $1.70 / gallon that was more of an oversight. It was probably the most comfortable car I've ever owned; often, when I would fade in and out of consciousness at night, I'd think I was laying in the plush back seat. Eventually, though, winter came and there was something wrong with the choke. I couldn't even get up to 55 mph on the freeway (going uphill, admittedly). After getting it un-stuck from the newly formed surface ice in my driveway in December (which had to have used a lot of gas), I drove it to the second nearest intersection a mile away on my way to school when it ran out of gas. That marked the retirement of my first car. I drove my dad's Suburban to school until February, when I bought...

A 1996 Buick Park Avenue! Actually, my dad bought it, and it wasn't much: about $2,800. We had to get new tires on it, but all said and done, it ended up at about $3,200. It had roughly 140,000 miles on it, but ran great. I did have problems, with it, however, as can be expected with a high-mileage car. My battery came loose and the car died on the off-ramp; thankfully, it was only the battery and not something more serious as I thought! Right at the beginning of summer, the driver's side window stopped rolling down...it was July before our "warehouse guy" fixed that. The brakes had to be replaced at least a couple of times. And finally, in the Summer of 2006, the cruise control went on it. Fall came and I began to think of trading it in for whatever it was worth and buying another car, but on a rainy (unusual for Duluth) winter day coming home from the last day of my first semester at college I totaled it (and another woman's car...long story), and that was the end of my '96 Buick.

I went through most of winter vacation that year without a car, but school was coming up soon and I absolutely needed another one. In my desperation I bought a 2000 Chevy Malibu for $4,900 from a used car lot in early January 2007, though it came to about $5,500 with taxes and registration fees. The Malibu would serve as the car that would take me through the rest of college; unfortunately, it would progressively deteriorate all throughout. The car was decent at first; although its radio / CD player was "locked out" of operation by the Anti-Theft system, necessitating (or so I thought at the time) an expense of $55 at the local Chevy dealership for the privilege of restoring it to operation. A few months into owning it, the ignition switch would make it difficult to 1) turn the key start it up, or 2) shut it off. This problem haunted me until I procured a new ignition switch, and even then it required a hard turn to shut off.

As late as June, I noticed that it would have trouble maintaining speed on the freeway (one of the steepest interstate grades in the nation). It turns out that it was running on only 5 cylinders. I don't think it ever ran on all 6.

In mid-December 2007 I was re-positioning my car in a snowstorm in the dark when I drove into an electrical pole in my yard. The car still ran fine, but my passenger's side headlight, fender, and bumper were severely damaged. The new light I picked up about two weeks and three traffic stops later; the bumper and fender I never fixed, though my brother made it look better.

The car ran fine over the following year, but in November or December of 2008 I noticed the anti-freeze light come on. Fine, I thought, just add anti-freeze. Then, about four weeks later, I noticed it come on again. I added more anti-freeze. Pretty soon I was adding anti-freeze every week. It turned out that it was yet another casualty of the lower intake manifold gasket problem that plagued seemingly all GM 3.1L V6 engines. I had somebody repair it for free at his friend's garage. He brought it back, and the coolant light was indeed off; but it ran even worse than before: it idled with an abnormally low RPM, it vibrated whenever it idled or the torque converter was disengaged, and just ran, in general, horribly. It would become worse and worse. Then I had a seizure in October 2009, found out that it was caused by a huge brain tumor inside my head, and was temporarily unable to drive. Soon the car sat next to the garage blocked in by snow.

That next summer marked even more tragedy in my life: our house had a fire that displaced us for over a month (and even then we returned to it early). Meanwhile, my car was acting up like never before. I drove it to my neurooncologist appointment in the Twin Cities, and upon hearing good news, took it on a little afternoon/evening road trip through the bluffs of the Mississippi. I smelled gas a little way's in to the road trip. I drove down there at 19 mpg; the next stop for gas I was surprised to get 15 mpg (it originally got about 30 mpg doing the kind of driving I was doing). I stopped yet again and to my shock it was getting 11 mpg...on the highway! I took it to a local mechanic's shop, owned by the dad of my brother's friend, a few days later. What I thought would be a solve-all solution turned out to be a disaster. I paid them $750 to essentially ruin my car. They fixed the gas leak, but the starter was burnt out (unlike before - I don't know if they really screwed it up), my headlight was also, strangely, they were unable to fix the engine because the previous person I had fix it put the rods in backwards, and to make it worse, after 30 minutes of trying to get it started in the shop yard, I drove it...and when I depressed the brakes, they barely worked! Apparently, somebody there screwed up the vacuum line to them.

I needed a new car, badly - on a budget. The next month I bought a 2001 Park Avenue for $4,550 ... all said and done it came to exactly $5,000. The problems with that would not begin until the following spring, when I was in a financial crisis and could not afford to fix them. They mainly revolved around the transmission. As early as the month after I purchased it, I noticed some hard shifting on the freeway. That hard shifting became quite problematic beginning in April or May. By June, the transmission was jolting at times. In July, it started slipping. I paid (well, my mother and I...my money is her money for now, me being unemployed) $410 for parts for a "complete fix" by a relative, but I think he spent it on something else. He brought it back and it ran essentially the same. Since September, the slipping has become regular, and you can barely drive it up hills.

And that's my car story....yours? You don't have to write as much as I did!

[Deez Nuttz]

Pretty much all, the cars I have owned I have enjoyed. The exceptions are the 83 Peugeot (ugly, slow, ugly, needed work, ugly), the 78 Cougar (needed work, didn't own for long) and maybe both of my Ford Couriers since they both were rot boxes that had all sorts of problems.

Now if we want to talk about cars I was really proud to have driven, my 71 Nova, my 69 Nova, my 71 Chevelle and my 87 T type.

One car I didn't like at first but grew to love was my 1975 Nova 4 door. Bought it out of necessity, and was heartbroken when I had to sell it.

[vmaxnc]

Do a search. There's at least one long thread about this.

[wit-nit]

What he said ^^^
How many cars have you been through in your life?

[TheViking85]

As mentioned, there's already a thread for this.