car posts page 3

Crash Dream

in

I had quite possibly my first car accident dream. Hopefully this isn’t foreboding. It was weird though, sort of like a video game in that my “camera” was behind my car, except down low, level with my eyes, so I couldn’t see the car ahead very well. Sometimes it would move closer like it was trying to meet up with my eyes, but then move back. The car ahead started slowing, so I did too, but then it started slowing faster than I could. My brakes were also weird, like I couldn’t press them down hard enough to make them slow like a real car. Just as I hit the car ahead, I awoke. There may have actually been a moment of post-crash reflection, but more of in a paused state just as contact was made: There was no impact or crumple or force.

in

Today, I ran over and killed some sort of mammal with my car. It darted out from the side of the road and went under the side of my car. I only got a glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t get a chance to do anything before it went under my tire. I think it was a possum. I only remember killing a mammal once before, a raccoon at night when I was in high school. A sad occurrence. A side affect of our popular mode of transportation.

Oil change trouble

in

After running through a few tanks to see the pre-change MPG of my Saturn, I changed the oil to a synthetic high MPG formulation. I had used the same oil in my Corolla and had noticed a definite increase, and wanted to verify that this increase was indeed happening. I haven’t verified the increase yet.

Unfortunately, the oil change itself was the worst I’ve ever done. It probably took me at least three hours. I had to clean some oil spilled from my leaky oil catcher pan. The biggest time consumer, though, was the filter: It was on there ridiculously tight and the Saturn has almost no space around it. I ended up stabbing it in numerous places with a screwdriver, hurting my hand, and getting soaked in oil. A filter wrench finally did it.

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My new car

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After my car died, I went looking for a car. I had to borrow my roommate’s car many times and my dad’s car while he was on vacation. I even rode my bicycle 20+ miles to work one day, though my roommate picked me up for the trip home. It took me over a month to make my decision.

Search

I had wanted to get a small stickshift hatchback a little smaller than my Corolla that would be able to get a little better gas mileage. Unfortunately, it was hard to find a model within my price range that actually fit my requirements. I spent a lot of time looking at craigslist, cars.com, autotrader.com, and others.

I called and emailed a number of private sellers, but never ended up going to see one. They seem harder to deal with, as you have to set up a time to meet and all, and then can’t take the car unless the title place is opened or they’ve already got their title notarized. I also visited a great many lots and test drove a number of cars.

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