Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: annoyed
  • Music: Christian Kane, "Something's Gotta Give."

It never rains but it pours.

My mother called me last night just before nine o'clock. "I thought I should let you know," she said. "My car threw a rod today."

Not being a driver myself (which is why there are so many entries that include the phrase "and then Mom drove me to..."), I asked naively if this was a bad thing. She explained that yes, it was a bad thing, and that further, given the age of her car (a third-hand station wagon we bought in early 2010, when her prior car, a fifth-hand station wagon that I think she bought from evil gnomes), it would be cheaper and safer to buy a new car than it would be to buy a new engine.

Well, crap.

So now we need to find a car. As cheaply as possible, since the money isn't exactly flowing like water around here. My mother gets me to the majority of my book events, as well as needing a vehicle to, you know, work. (One of the sad ironies of our current culture: She can't afford to live where there's good, dependable public transit, so she lives in a place where you have to have a car, but she can pay the rent. Take away her car, she has to move to where there's dependable public transit. Only she can't do that, because there is no more dependable public transit in even semi-affordable places. So she needs a car...)

If you know of anyone in the Bay Area who is selling a vehicle and not too wedded to using the money to buy a boat, please let me know? A station wagon would be preferred, since Mom regularly hauls a lot of crap around, including me.

I swear, it never rains but it pours.
Tags: cranky blonde is cranky, family, freaking out, oh the humanity, things go boom
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  • 86 comments
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jarissa

February 11 2011, 20:47:25 UTC 6 years ago

Look at the carfax (if you can) of where ANY car has been driven. Cars from areas which don't require heavy salting are to be preferred, all other things being equal.


Except for here in Alabama and then over in Mississippi.
It's my understanding that the car laws in Alabama are arranged in such a way that an unethical dealer can manage to not mention on the title that this vehicle has been flooded, this vehicle has been declared totalled, this vehicle has been salvaged and is not really ever going to be safe or road-legal again.
Meanwhile, Mississippi allows some cars with salvage titles to be driven on their roads, provided certain repairs are accomplished.

So the nefarious type gets a vehicle like my poor lost RAV4, which died on the road saving me from a stoned car thief. He straightens the bend as best he can, replaces all the painted parts with less bent painted parts and probably repaints them, probably patches half the windows in the process, replaces the transmission (because you have to be able to get out of Neutral and into motion) and the radiator (because otherwise the first thing the vehicle does when you turn it on is cook itself and then catch fire). Nefarious Type then puts newer tires on it, cleans the inside, and transports it to Mississippi, where he convinces a tired government official that it drives FINE (at least for a few minutes) ... and then he takes it to a faraway state, like California, and gets it onto an auction.

Alabama and Mississippi: be extra-curious if either or both of these states appear in the vehicle's history!

aliciaaudrey

February 11 2011, 21:16:29 UTC 6 years ago

I've heard about this. Pretty aggravating. I'm not against salvaged cars in principle, actually, but you want to know what you're getting. The electronics in a flooded car often never quite work right after that.