1988 Pontiac Sunbird
Not only does my car suck, it blows too. This POS started with a $3000
price tag. Why someone would pay that for this car I don't know, but I did. I
bought it in December of 1998 with less than 24000 miles on it. Not bad. The
lady I bought it from averaged less that 50 miles a week in it, so I figure it
should be in pretty good shape right? Thhhhbpt. The day I bought it, I had the
oil change. My mechanic showed me the oil (it looked like chocolate rubber
cement) and said that the oil probably hadn't been changed for over three years.
Three years!!!! I should have known then. 2 months after I bought it, I paid
$700 for a head gasket. That was pretty. Huge billowing smoke coming out the
exhaust. I almost hit a tree backing up when it first happened because I
couldn't see out my rear window. 1 month after that I paid $200 for a new
alternator. Then it actually ran pretty well for about 1 year except for this
weird knocking noise that started when the gasket blew. My mechanic said that
might stop after a while and it did....right before my Check Engine light
started coming on. Turns out that the fuel sensor and some other sensor went
bad. I wondered why my car was smelling funny. It was burning fuel too quickly.
That cost about $350. My last two inspections have cost me $400 dollars EACH and
my mechanic didn't charge me labor either time. Tires, exhaust, muffler, blah
blah blah. I have had a hose blow causing an oil leak three times. My mechanic
charged me $10 the first time and then he has done it for free the other two
times. The oil cap gasket cracked and oil leaked all over my engine causing it
to smoke embarrassingly. When I am stopped slight uphill sometimes it makes a
high-pitched "wheeeeeeeeee" noise. When it is under 60 degrees outside, my car
wants to stall until it warms up My mechanic can't figure that one out. It never
seems to happen when he goes to start my car. I moved from Pittsburgh
(THANK GOD!!) back to Philly two months ago and apparently developed a coolant
leak. I happened to look under the hood the day after I got to Philly and
had almost no antifreeze in my radiator or overflow tank. So I filled it. Looked
under the hood a couple of days later and there was a lot less antifreeze in my
car than a couple of days ago. So I bought some sealant and that seemed to do
the trick for the most part. It still leaked a little bit, but not nearly as bad
and I figured I'd make it till November when my inspection was due (Nooooo....not
inspection!!!) That pretty much brings me up to yesterday when I was driving
home from work and the whole reason for writing this rant. My car started to
overheat. I quickly pulled into a parking lot that I happened to be next to and
turned my car off and popped the hood. I noticed that my antifreeze was now
almost black, which it wasn't yesterday when I added a little antifreeze to my
overflow tank so my car wouldn't overheat. Now I don't know much about cars, but
I know that antifreeze turning black in one day is not a good thing. I managed
to get it to my mechanics with the heat blasting and there it sits now as I
write this.
You know, all this crap is bad and really shows that my car sucks, but the 2
worst things about my car are:
1. The crank for my sunroof (yes, I have a manual sunroof) doesn't stay on so I
can't open or close my sunroof.
and
2. Every time I use the turn signals my windshield wipers go off. After four
years of that, I really really want to rip my windshield wipers off. Plus my
friends think that is the funniest thing they have ever seen. I can see how it
is funny, but to live with that every single day, it just wears thin.
Josh Kohn |
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