Patience is Wearing Thin...

It's been a little while since I did a legitimate post (aside from that one about the American car companies, which I actually wrote last week). However, that's not to say that things haven't been happening. This past Friday, Blue started to really have some problems and it couldn't have come at a worse time. I was set to drive up to my hometown of Hayward Wisconsin for an event called The Lumberjack World Championships for a small business opportunity right after I got off of work. However, Ol' Blue had other plans.

I left my house a few minutes early and had got no more than 2 blocks from my driveway when I heard the metal against pavement and I knew it was time to stop. I hopped out onto the rain-soaked street and saw that the rearmost two-thirds of my exhaust and muffler system were no longer attached. Balancing myself by hanging onto the passenger side door handle in attempts to stay off the wet road, I grabbed the loose pipe and jammed it back onto its proper seating and optimistically drove off again to work.

One block later, my optimism vanished. The pipe came off again, grinding against the pavement, and I returned home in hopes of making a temporary repair. I again returned the pipe to it's intended position and used a length of baling wire to fasten it to the undercarriage. This worked pretty well but I knew it wasn't going to be enough. As suspected, the pipe came off again but it fortunately didn't meet the pavement as the wire was keeping it suspended above the ground. Noise, however was a factor.

When I got to my office, I waited to run to the hardware store across the street and came back with a muffler clamp that has since been pretty effective. However, upon installing the clamp, I decided to fire up Blue and let the battery charge for a bit. Ol' Blue wasn't having any of it as the starter finally gave up the ghost. Needless to say, my language at that point became a little vulgar.

Long story short, I got Blue fixed over the weekend for about $200. I figure it's worth it as the damn thing has to be running in order for it to qualify for the CARS program. Spend $200 to get $4500, makes pretty good sense to me.

However, this brings up an interesting wrinkle to the CARS initiative. How many people like me (I know of at least one other for sure) have had to make last minute repairs to their vehicles to just keep them running long enough to get onto the dealership lot? One thing I've read is that you can negotiate the scrap value of your car with the dealer in terms of what your bottom line will be when purchasing the new vehicle. Dealers can sell off certain, usable parts of the cars before they're destroyed and I'm sure a lot of "new" parts are being installed in these clunkers at the moment. Be sure to ask about that when you trade in yours, I know that at the very least, Ol' Blue is worth a good starter. Read more!

The American Car Companies Finally Enter the Ring

I'd made mention before that in my search for the ultimate Ol' Blue replacement, the Asian car manufacturers were coming out waaaay ahead of the American companies that are in so much trouble. Well, Chrysler appears to finally be getting message that they better do something to compete. I just caught wind that they're willing to offer ANOTHER $4,500 in cash allowances to people buying Chrysler products. Simply put, this means I could get a $9,000 trade in value for a truck that is worth barely $1,500 on the street. God Bless America!

I called my local Chrysler/Dodge dealer and asked which cars they have that qualify for the C4C program and he rattled off a list that included the Dodge Caliber, Dodge Avenger, Chrysler Sebring, and something called the "Patriot". Of these, I'm probably most interested in the Caliber as it's the most cheaply priced and has some legit cargo space being a hatchback type vehicle. It's tough to say whether or not buying a lower rated vehicle will be worth it in the long run, but we'll see. Read more!

Damn You, Joe Mazan

You have made a fool of me for the first and last time.

/slowly clenches fist in a dramatic fashion.

In actuality, those guys were pretty good sports and I was willing to act the fool a bit. But seriously, they did edit that shit to make it sound like I'm not one smoothed out player who knows how to get his, and that's just not true. What I did say was that, when you drive around a heap like Ol' Blue, you're game has to be even sharper, and I'm not hurting in that department. Fuckers. He who laughs last, has his foot in yo' ass. That'll be me.

On the car-search front, I'm making some strides with the local dealers about a few different models. I wont get into the hairy details, but I really want to make them bend over backwards to get my business. Perhaps that could be best done with an American car dealer, but from what I've seen so far, they're more expensive and rate out shitty in comparison to the Japanese and Korean cars. I guess that's why they're all up shit creek now.


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The Ol' Blue Publicity Machine Rolls On

Most of you readers (if there are in fact any readers) already know that Minnesota Public Radio did a story on my taking part in the government CARS program. That aired this morning apparently (here's the link, audio hopefully forthcoming, don't look at my belly)and on the heels of that piece, I got contacted by the local ABC affiliate, KSTP. They're doing a similar story for the evening news and caught my name on the MPR website. This is getting kind of crazy.


I never would have guessed that I would have been singled out for this kind of thing, but now that it's happening, I'm loving every second of it. Joe and KSTP were a little more light-hearted than Marty from MPR which was to be expected. This was far from the first time I'd been on TV, but usually those appearances came as a result of Lumberjack stuff, but I digress. Read more!

The Lady is Compliant

After some thought, I finally gave the other party a call regarding the accident and what ought to take place from here on out. The conversation was extremely amicable and I think we're well on our way to a resolution. Maybe I'm a little too forgiving, but based on what she told me, she doesn't have a ton of money to throw around to make this problem go away and really I just want to cover my hardship for now having to find a new car.

I should probably refrain from going into specifics on a public weblog, so I wont talk numbers, but i think when it's all said and done, I can almost get a new car for free. If that's the case, I don't give a rats ass what I get, so long as it's free.

So far, I think the Hyundai Accent is the cheapest new car available. It starts at just under $10k. As stripped down as it may be, if it's free, it's for me.


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The Numbers Are In: Damage Estimate Entering Ri-donk-ulous Proportions

The reality of my collision-mate not having insurance has necessitated that I take matters into my own hands. Step one was getting an estimate on repairs for Ol' Blue. Step two will be contacting Ms. Inattentive Driver and seeing just what she's prepared to pay out to make this matter go away. Step three will be either cashing her check, or giving her some hell in small claims court. That last one depends on what happens in step two of course.


As far as step one goes, I took Blue down to Lehman's Garage in Bloomington today and have them size up the situation. Jim, the gentleman that gave me the quote was a pretty nice guy. He looked Blue over while I finished my lunch and when he came back, he had kind of a funny look on his face. He handed me the estimate sheet and simultaneously said, "It's pretty high".

Ok now, prepare yourselves.

Seven thousand three hundred seventy four dollars and ninety two cents, or $7374.92

I love Blue, I really do. But he is not worth seven thousand dollars even in prison. Just not so.

So what this does, at least from what I can tell, is give me a big number to leverage against her for payment. I paid less than $2,000 for the vehicle and probably put in another $600 over the course of the year for repairs and maintenance. Needless to say, were I to get what I paid for the car and then some after driving it for a year, I'd be elated.

Time to put the ball in her court.






And here is the rest of it.


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Uninsured Motorists Can Suck It.

I fully realize that this situation may be interesting only to me, but I must say it does get more complicated seemingly by the day. When I filed my claim with Geico (my insurance company) they told me they would contact her insurance company (State Farm) and they would likely be getting in touch with me to get my story. Geico also told me that if I didn't hear from State Farm in a day or so, to give them a call.

Which brings us to today.
There was a specific reason they weren't calling and it was because whatserface is no longer one of their policy holders. Simply put, this ain't their problem. I called them and they told me that at one point she did have a policy, but thanks to non-payments, it was terminated. Great.

So I called Geico and they pretty much told me the same thing. I only have liability coverage for Ol' Blue so there's really no claim I can make for anything whatsoever. Kind of a sack of downers because I think there really could be some necessary repairs in order to keep Blue going for the next few weeks, but in light of my original plan this doesn't change very much.

So now, my only course of action is to get an appraisal on what it would take to make the repairs and then send her that estimate. If it's not dealt with, then we sick the dogs on her, and by dogs I mean the law.

What makes it so weird is that it was she, not I, that called the police immediately and brought them into the equation. I would have happily settled this away from all insurance and/or authoritative agencies, but that's not what's happening now and so be it.

Either way, I'm going to get mine.

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