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I think we’re allshocked when we pull our cars up to the pump these days. And while I’m lucky enough to drive a vehicle that gets good gas mileage, I almost fainted when my husband filled his old as Methuselah new truck the other day. Dual tanks? We may have to remortgage the house.
So in the spirit of giving… because that’s just who I am… I bring you a tried and true solution to saving money at the pumps.
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Economical, low emission and environmentally friendly.
You’re welcome.
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Success was hard won, but after another full of month of fruitless used car shopping, we finally found one for our niece.
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A 2012 Subaru Impreza hatchback which cost a lot more money than I planned on spending for a 19 year old’s first car…. but welcome to pandemic era shopping.
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The economy is iffy and people aren’t buying new, which means they aren’t trading old, which means a complete lack of decent inventory on the lots. The pickings are extremely slim in Maine and unless you’re willing to spend $11,000 plus (I wasn’t) or buy something with 225,000 miles (also a no) good frickin’ luck.
Thankfully the dealership where she fell in love with this one allowed us to drive it an hour away to have our trusty mechanics/old friends give it a thorough once over.
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They found a few minor things it needed, while this fellow looked on…
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Hey, our friends run a high class garage…. and can apparently fix anything. Including the tin man.
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Okay, as evidenced by their Hooter calendar…. maybe not that high class.
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But they’re experienced and kind enough to examine the car for free, so I’ll excuse a few scantily clad bimbos.
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The car won their seal of approval… after telling us it needed new tires… and our niece let out an audible sigh of relief.
Time to celebrate.
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At the closest restaurant to the dealership while they got the paperwork together.
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Cheers to a young girl’s first car!
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And a hearty home style lunch. Corn and bacon chowder with a hot turkey sandwich for me. That damn thing was so big I ate off it for 3 days.
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Signing her own paperwork. With a man who needs serious instruction on mask protocol.
Big smiles and key in hand.
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A final hug for the best aunt and uncle on earth.
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A thumbs up behind the wheel…. and off she went back to college.
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One extremely happy camper.
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We thought we’d found the perfect used car for our 19 year old niece. A 2008 Hyundai Sante Fe with only 60,000 miles. It was clean, had new tires, brakes, struts, alternator and battery. It rode well and shifted smoothly.
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It was a one owner car with a clean record.
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The price was on the low end of a fair market range.
But because I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t trust anyone, we took it to our trusted mechanic/old friend for a once over.
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He crawled under it to check for rust.
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He put it up on the lift to check whatever you check when you put a car up on a lift.
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He checked the engine and fluids and belts.
He even test drove it.
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We were pretty sure it would get his seal of approval until we pulled back into his garage …
And the dreaded check engine light came on.
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Hooking it up to his handy code reader…. it said error POO18.
Poo is rarely good, but no one wants to spend thousands of dollars on an engine full of it.
P0018 is the OBD-II generic code indicating that the camshaft position sensor A for bank 2 does not correlate to the signal from the crankshaft position sensor.
The bank 2 intake camshaft is out of position compared to the crankshaft position. The bank 2 camshaft phaser is stuck in one position or will not move.
So, poo!
Back to the dealership she went along with my hopes and dreams of ending the month and half long car search we’ve been on for a 19 year old’s first car.
In my day unscrupulous car dealers used to roll back the odometer. These days that’s too difficult, so they just switch off the check engine light instead.
Grrr.
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River's world..... 