CAR TROUBLES

We have two cars: a minivan and a sedan.
Recently, our minivan started making an odd noise. Sounded like a transmission problem, so we brought into the shop. They said that it was, indeed, a transmission problem and they'd have to practically replace it. It was going to cost $4000. So we have this 6-year-old minivan with 120,000 miles on it. Is it worth replacing or fixing it? We hemmed and hawed for almost a full day and decided to go ahead and fix it. Now, keep in mind, this minivan has been in 5 major accidents in six years. It's hit ambulances, telephone poles, other cars, you name it. It's been rebuilt so many times it's ridiculous.
Several days later, the van's done. We're down $4000, but the van's fixed.

About a week later, my wife woke up sick. I decided to take the day off work and take the kids to school. While the kids were at school, I decided to go into work for an hour or so, just to catch up on some stuff. I took the minivan because I needed to take some equipment home and I needed the room. At about a third of the way to work I felt a bump. I figured I ran over something so I looked in the rearview mirror. There I saw a tan sedan fishtailing all over the highway, swerving from lane to lane. I tried my best to get away from the car, but it slammed into my rear side panel and pushed me into a tailspin across all three lanes of highway traffic. I bounced off the concrete divider and came to rest facing the wrong way on the highway. Luckily, I was now on the shoulder and nobody else hit me. My car had a damaged rear bumper, a huge dent on the side, and the side sliding door couldn't open because of the deformation. One tire was flat and the other one sat on a broken axle. The other car was front-first into the divider, totally smushed. The driver was unharmed as was I. According to a witness and police report, the driver had been driving erratically for several miles. She kept dozing off and she eventually drifted into my lane and tapped me. This woke her up and she freaked out and swerved the car and lost control. So my sick wife had to come get me. Of course, we were now tying up traffic so it took her forever to get there. But she did and we followed the tow truck to the repair shop and then went and picked up a rental car. This all happened on a Friday, so we had to wait over the weekend to find out if the appriaser from the insurance company was going to total the van or not. We spent the weekend shopping for cars, just in case.
Eventually we got the word that the van was not going to be totalled and it would cost $5000 to fix, $500 out of our pocket. My wife had become convinced that the car was cursed. It had now been one major accident every year of its life and it would not die.

We kept calling to check on the van and when it would be done. Things were going slowly at the repair shop because the suppliers kept sending the wrong parts. Then they sent a pair of tires and during the wheel alignment they realized one of the pair was not the correct kind of tire, so they had to remove it and order another one. It was finally done almost a week after they said it would be done. The repair guy told my wife something to the effect of, "I had to say this, but your car is weird. I've never had so many problems with one car before. It's like it's cursed or something." Great.

The day after we got the van back, I was off to work in my car, the sedan. I decided to take the Ocean Parkway. For those who don't know, the Ocean Parkway runs along the bottom of Long Island for something like 20 miles straight with no major exits. It's right by the shore and there's rarely much traffic. As soon as I got on the Parkway, I heard an odd noise and another driver waved to me to pull over. I had a flat tire. No big deal. I can change a flat. I jacked it up, pulled off nut #1, nut #2, nut #3...
And the fourth one was stuck. I kept at and it finally loosened. I was able to turn it easily. But it juts kept turning, never getting closer to coming out. Finally I had to call AAA to come get me. The guy got there, tried the same things I did, and went, "huh, that's weird." Yeah, thanks. Apparently the stud came loose from its moorings and was just spinning, not letting the tire come off. So the repair guy went to his truck, pulled out a 3-foot sledge hammer and commences to whacking on the stud. It finally broke in half and the flat was able to come off. But the other half of the stud was now rattling around inside the brake system. After about another 15 minutes of fiddling with fingers and screwdrivers, he finally got it out and was able to put on the spare tire...which began to hiss. Except then it stopped hissing, and when the repair guy filled it up again, it didn't hiss anymore. Nothing's worse than intermittent problems. But he put the spare on and sent me on my way. I was able to drive to work and drop the car off at the tire place. The tire place called about 4 hours later: "Man, we put this car up and the lift and we're opening up a can of worms on this thing." So the wheel needed to be replaced, the brakes fixed, the stud replaced and I also had a bubble in my brake fluid hose, like an anurysm. So luckily we caught that one before I lost my brakes, huh? What I had originally imagined being an $80 tire replacement turned into an $800 major project and left me car-less for another 48 hours. Luckily I was able to borrow cars from the parents and in-laws. Thanks, guys.

It's now been almost a week and no experts have had to look at either of our cars. I keep calling the insurance company to find out when the other driver's insurance is going to pay for the $500 deductable. They haven't claimed responsibility yet and my insurance company can't get in touch with the other driver. So it looks like they're playing hard to get.

My Dad's one-month-old, new car just broke down a coupla days ago. It's starting to get a little too "The Day the Earth Stood Still" for me, to be honest.