My car is out of commission until my friend can look at it...it has 3 small oil leaks that need repair, and given that I drive 300-500 miles a day, I'd rather not drive it until it's fixed.

The dealer wanted $1500 to fix them...no. My friend can fix them for $200-500...it's a matter of him coming over to get it, which will hopefully be tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm driving M's car, which is nice, but it's not my Impala.

Trans shot on one car this am and daughter rear-ended somebody this afternoon.

Thankfully no one was hurt - just a minor bump. I just can't afford any of this right now.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr - I've had my PJ's on since 5 and refuse to drive anywhere.

Fuck this shit. I'm turning Amish. Gonna git me a horse!

At least you all know what happened to your cars.

Someone ran into our car when it was parked and didn't bother leaving a note.

Arseholes.

Oh, this was yesterday by the way.

Someone hit and run, in a parking lot, my younger sis in law's new Odyssey after she'd had it 3 weeks.

She still didn't beat my 'totaled at 2 weeks' but it sure does suck.

Leave a note, ffs. We can figure out the logistics later.

Ali, what kind of car insurance laws do you have there? When someone hits and runs here I figure they're either drunk or don't have insurance...or both.

or they're just a dick and don't want to pay the excess.

By the way, Zen. My Beetle doesn't make any noise at all. I was leaving the 'rent's house one Sunday and my mom mentioned she didn't even realize I'd started my car because it was so quiet. German engineering. ;) Not a lawnmower sound.

Well thankfully it was our little 'mostly around the neighbourhood' car which is in far from perfect condition anyway. We only have third party property damage insurance on that car, mainly because it's just not worth paying the premiums for comprehensive, so we're covered for any damage we do to anyone else, but not ourselves (our thinking is the car's only worth a couple of grand, so if it's that badly damaged that we can't drive it, we'll probably just replace it anyway). So anyway, it is possible that the other person didn't notice they'd hit us. It might just 'pop out' and that'll be that, but I still think it's rude not to leave a note.

I know one time I slightly rubbed someone's bumper trying to get out of a tight park and left a note.

The old lady who owned the car called me to thank me but said she wasn't going to worry about insurance or anything and that he son would probably just polish it out. I felt good that I'd done the right thing. I think she was surprised. She said she probably wouldn't have even noticed if I hadn't left the note.

Have you forgotten the Great War already?

What was so great about it? :p:

Human population reduction

There's a large Amish population in Northwest Missouri, centered around Jamesport...I drive through there during my afternoon route on occasion.

(Did I mention that I was laid off as the operations manager at the company I worked for and just drive for them as an independent contractor now? Which is exactly what I did for them in St. Louis before they hired me to help them run the KC operation. Anyway...)

Do you know how many of those lovely Amish I've almost taken out? Inadvertently, mind you...

Like, dinner and a sermon?

I've got the heaters in my living room to prove it!

Friend of mine used to drive an old beat-up car he called the "Claimsmobile." It was a barely-running piece of crap, worth about $500. Somebody rear-ended him, the body shop said fixing the bumper was going to cost a lot, so the insurance company just wrote it off as totaled and gave him a check for $500. He was perfectly happy to keep driving the old car with one more dent in the bumper than it had before, so basically he just walked away with free money for his trouble.

And this happened two more times, before the car finally gave up the ghost and he sold it for scrap... for another $500. He never tried to get in accidents, certainly, but in the end he made a profit owning that car.