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.