The Car Saga Continues

Please enjoy this post about basically nothing.

As you may remember, a few weeks ago, the wheel on my car flew off at 70 miles per hour. You can read that story here if you missed it. Silly me, I thought that we’d get the car towed to the body shop, jump into a rental, and away I’d go, carefree for a week or so and then I’d get my car back and figure out the next step.

Well, that’s not how it went. I got the rental car. It was a 2014 Toyota Corolla. I was pretty excited to sync my phone with the bluetooth and drive around chatting with people…life was grand, it’s the little things. I got about 1/2 a mile from the rental lot when I noticed the check engine light was on. I called the guy at the rental place and told him and he assured me there was no possible way the car could need maintenance since it only had 5,000 miles on it, and so, I continued home. I got home and grabbed the bases to the carseats and skipped out to the car, feeling giddy that I was almost all set up in my “new” car. And then I saw that the back tire was flat. Yes, I got a flat tire on a rental with 5,000 miles on it just one day after the entire wheel had flown off my car. I guess I should have (?) and certainly could have thrown a bigger fit and made the people at the rental lot bring me a new car. Instead, I went around the corner to the local mechanic and had him take a look. There was apparently a giant screw in the tire, so he fixed it and I drove all the way back across town to get a new rental car because there was no way I was going to drive around town with something possibly wrong with the tire. No way. No way. No way.

Fast forward about a week…I had spent the week car shopping because the thought of driving while wheels fly off is terrifying, and we were thinking of upgrading anyway. It’s a little tough to fit two adults, two babies, two dogs, a double stroller, and all the other stuff having two babies requires into a Subaru Outback. So I found a car I thought I liked way, way across town (like…farther than the rental car place) and Patrick had one day off that week, one precious day off. There was no way I was going to buy a car without him seeing it first, so I checked the dealership website to be sure the car was still listed in their inventory, and away we went.

When we arrived at the dealership I didn’t see the car but figured it had been moved to a different part of the lot. We went in and asked for it. Suddenly, two or three salesmen were frantically digging through file cabinets and binders while one furiously clicked away on the computer. The keys were gone. The car was gone. They thought one of the other salesmen had taken it home for the weekend (which is stupid and annoying if you ask me). So…back across town we go. And then, CLUNK. What’s that you say? No way I could have more tire problems? Wrong you are! I ran over a GIANT hunk of metal on our way home (thank goodness babies weren’t with us). I called Hertz roadside assistance because I paid for the insurance, and dag-nab-it, I was going to use it! But alas, rental car insurance does not cover “mounting a spare,” so my dear husband got to change the tire on rental car #2 on his one day off all week.

Seriously, what is that thing? And why was it in the road?!

I’m sure this is how Patrick wanted to spend his one day off right before he worked 12 in a row.

The next morning, I called the dealership about the new car. Turns out, the car was sold over the weekend. Thanks for updating your website and your salespeople, jerks.

So, then I got ANOTHER rental car which was a real piece of crap that smelled like old cigarettes. When I finally got my own car (the one with the flying wheel) back, I had convinced myself that I didn’t need to purchase a new car, that this one would be fine for the next several years. I was about 3 miles from the auto body shop and the check engine light came on…and that was the last straw! I now have a new car!

Disclaimer: I left out a huge part of this story that involves me leaving my phone, drivers license, and wallet in three different places around town in a span of 2 days, you’re welcome.