It's been lightly snowing off and on every other day or so, which brought up something about the car: the ESC traction control (or whatever it is) is going off a lot earlier these days. Let me put it this way: in over two years with the Hyundai, it has almost never kicked in. Now it kicks in as soon as there's a coating of snow on the ground. We have no idea why.
Perhaps motivated by the horrible noises the ESC makes, my wife took the car to have the brakes checked. POOF - the brakes were band and had started eating into the rotors. No warning, no squealing, no brake lights and the requisite four-hundred dollars to fix it.
Have I mentioned that one of the headlights is out too? We looked up the process for changing a headlight and discovered it was way too ridiculously difficult and left it for the mechanic. The last place we took it too said they were afraid of breaking it and told us to take it elsewhere. Elsewhere charged us a frightening amount of money for a bulb. In my many years of driving, I always changed my own bulbs. At most it was a few bucks and some cursing.
So during the brake fiasco, the shop noted that all four tires needed replacing. I thought the top of my head was going to explode, painting the ceiling a bright red, with spots that might look like cranium and other small bits that looked like cauliflower.
Stick with me for a Financial Moment<tm>: a fiscally smart coworker stated that his decision to purchase a new(er) car was when the monthly cost of repairs exceeded the monthly cost of purchasing the car. With two old land yachts, we were routinely spending over what one new car would cost so we went for it.
I was so proud of my almost new Hyundai. It started every morning, which was largely what I was looking for in an automobile. Until we discovered the tires. PERFORMANCE TIRES on a Hyundai, at two-hundred plus dollars a piece. The stock ones were crappy and needed to be replaced.
Back to the present, after replacing all four performance tires, they needed to be replaced again. The shop showed us the wear and the statistics on when we purchased two of them. They were only rated for thirty thousand miles. The ones we purchased elsewhere were in even worse shape.
I have completely had it with Hyundai and the idiotic decision to put large rims and performance tires on an import family sedan. This is an additional eight-hundred dollars plus that it will cost to make the car driveable/inspectable. I used to love my car; now I can't stand to look at it. In spite of a great used warranty, I suspect this car is trying to bankrupt me by failing in small, expensive pieces. It's like the prison camp prisoner who had to have limbs amputated and the guards accused him of trying to escape in pieces.
The mechanic at the shop agreed with us on the tires and suggested we just get different rims and sensible tires for the car and be done with it.
Our tax refund this year was earmarked for a new couch. The current couch is extremely old and is sagging to the point where it makes my butt hurt when I sit for too long. This got scrapped when the car started draining our bodily fluids. So this is over twelve-hundred dollars to start the year.
We're more than tired of this type of excrement storm. It hits fairly regularly. Others verify that if it weren't for bad luck, we'd have no luck at all. Later this month, we celebrate our twentieth anniversary and my wife attempted to give me a present. I can't accept it, knowing that it will only get sucked out an exhaust pipe or a pharmacy.
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In other news, work went to set up a videoconference this morning, only to find the large-screen monitor missing. Again. This makes the third set of large-screen monitors stolen from work. It was literally ripped from the wall.
Management does not believe in Big Brotherism, hence no security cameras: the thief must have really needed the monitors. At this point, I demand that work give me a large-screen television. After all, I have an old CRT-based television so I really need a new one. Since the thieves are allowed to steal because they need it, I deserve one too (ten years should entitle me to something).
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