Closed Caption THIS

Ok, I know.... I haven't been keeping up the prior schedule of blogging.  I have no idea why. Perhaps because my life is... less interesting(?) lately...

But let me update you.

No post would be complete without News of the Car.  We're proudly riding with our almost brand new (looking) right side.  Yes, a number of thousands of dollars later, we were free of unsightly dents, which went right up the entire right side of the car.  Not to mention our fourth or fifth passenger side mirror.

I was really proud of the end result.  Several of my coworkers came up to me, unsolicited, to let me know how great the car looked.  You know where I'm going with this, right?

Two days later, the wife calls me at work. "I spun 360 degrees because this Philly piece of dung, no doubt without insurance, ran a red light and came withing inches of the car." [Note: it is stated that over fifty percent of Philly drivers have no insurance].  One of the earlier accidents involved Church People who said they'd pray for us.  It turns out that they were using their dead mother's insurance card and the insurance had lapsed because they hadn't paid the premiums.

Over the weekend I got another call.  It's getting to the point that I'm afraid to take calls from the wife. This time it was a pothole.  Apparently it had swallowed a few businesses and it took out one of the horribly expensive performance tires (on our Hyundai).  Off to Pep Boys after triple A arrived to change to the donut.

Pep Boys, ever the accomodating enterprise, informed her that it would be three and a half hours, minimum, to replace the tire.  The fellow advised her to come back the following morning, scheduling an appointment at ten.

So the following morning (Easter, mind you), she showed up at ten in the morning and found people lined up all over the place.  She went to claim her ten o'clock appointment, only to discover that the previous evening's employee wrote nothing down, including the alleged appointment and wasn't in all day, as is customary.

So I got another call.  I wonder if somehow I stop accepting her calls, flats will stop happening.

Eventually they get to her.  I can't stress highly enough that you purchase the optional tire insurance for your tires (especially the performance tires, which are as rugged as tissues). The total price was thirty bucks.

But WAIT......

Whilst replacing the tire with the huge performance hole in it, the technician discovered another tire, which apparently had a performance bubble in it.  A second thirty bucks well spent.  And it's much better to learn of a tire bubble on a lifter than on a road (at the speed limit, of course).

If anybody knows a shaman or voodoo priest who takes the whammy off cars, please refer them to me.

===========================================

For some reason known only to my wife, Closed Captioning is enabled on our television.  It's not really a problem unless we want to see something on the bottom of the screen.

So she's watching some horrid old movie, as is customary.  There's a Jewish wedding happening and the father is talking to the bride, telling her how proud he is and how she has always brought him naches. Naches is a Yiddish word, meaning joy or blessings,pride especially from ones children, grandchildren.

The people who do Closed Captioning apparently don't see much Yiddish, as what came onscreen was 'You have brought me knockers.'

Dad must've been really proud.

Son of Return of Hyundai Hell

So I've largely stopped trying to tear my face off; that's a good thing.  The Stupidbowl is over too.  My favorite moment was when my (traitor) wife went to bed - I got to turn the tv off.

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.

--------------------------------

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).

Dear Mr. Hyundai

Good day, Sir.

I did quite a bit of research before I purchased my Hyundai Sonata.  The cars constantly come up at the top of Consumer Reports' reports and I hear nothing but good things from owners.

Before my Sonata, I owned nothing but big cars.   Really big cars.  Cars of the class Land Yacht.  Vehicles that had different area codes in the front and rear seats.   Purchasing a Sonata was tacit admission that I could no longer afford land yachts.

The joke, of course, was on me.  My Lincoln got seventeen miles per gallon.  My Sonata gets eighteen to twenty-four (with two less cylinders).

But don't take this as a shot at Hyundai.  My Sonata, purchased as a three year old vehicle, has started every morning and has never failed me (which is more than I can say for the ancient Town Car).

The real shocker came when it was time to purchase new tires.  Why a three year old car needs new tires is beyond the scope of this post.

So tell me:  whose brilliant idea was it to put performance tires on a Hyundai?  Why does a sedan require two-hundred-dollar tires?  Does it have something to do with those silly ethnic wheels?


I have been putting large, round rubber tires on cars since I was sixteen.  Not even the largest and most expensive luxury tire has ever approached this ridiculous price point.  Why?

Today I took the car in for inspection and learned another Interesting Fact<tm>: apparently the same joker who selected the tires had a hand in selecting and placing the bulbs.  Two repair stations told me to take the car to a dealer to have the bulbs replaced; it was too difficult for them.  The inspection station had no trouble at all, in fact, charging me the better part of one hundred dollars to do the job.

I have been replacing bulbs since before I could drive.  Somebody over there at Hyundai is having the last laugh on owners in spectacular fashion.

Are your tires and bulbs made of Unobtanium?  Do you get a kickback from tire manufacturers?  I do not drive a hot rod.  In fact, it's more of a boring family sedan on purpose.  I was hoping to avoid this nonsense....

I will continue to insist that Hyundai makes good, solid cars, adding that a serious investment program (or retirement fund) is required for tire and bulb replacement.

Sincerely,

leftystrat
from the blogosphere

The Law of Inverse Proportions [as Applied to Rubber]

In music, it is widely known that volume is inversely proportional to talent.

In women's clothing, the less material used, the higher the cost.

This morning, we came across a similar law for cars: the less actual rubber in a tire, the more expensive it is.

You might remember that I have exclusively owned land yachts; cars that have different area codes in the front and rear seats.  These automobiles had humongous tires.  If you stacked up the tires, you could comfortably fit a small family in them, standing up.

Since the money I earn goes to medical costs and taxes, we had no choice but to bite the bullet and purchase an almost new car.  A small(er) car.  Some would call it a mid-size sedan.  Some would call it a full-size car.  I call it a Hyundai Sonata (as in Sonata big car).

The first thing I noticed when I saw the car was that it had ethnic wheels.   This is a recent phenomenon, wherein the wheel is huge and the tire small.  If the owner is particularly nuts, the wheels appear to spin backwards.  If other drivers are particularly intoxicated, the wheels all spin in different directions anyway.

Possibly as a result of ethnic wheels, the ride is bumpy as hell.  Never mind that I'm used to humongous eight-cylinder American cars.

Insult was added to injury this morning, as my wife went to get new tires.  She had done some research and budgeted a certain amount, only to discover that these tires are performance tires. 

Everybody say it at the same time:  "Performance tires on a Hyundai?" 

That's what my wife said.  That's what I said.  The mechanic just shook his head, sadly bemused.

Six to nine hundred dollars for tires?

Why does a six-cylinder sedan that can't best twenty-two miles per gallon require performance tires?  Whatever happened to couch tires?  Bloated tires?  Running over speed bumps and small cars without knowing it tires?


I haven't even mentioned that someone sideswiped my wife and ran her off the road the other day.

This is not looking like a good week.