Kitty.nu » car

Please don’t die.

Jenn — Tue, 20 May 2008 20:22:59 +0000

That is my Kia Spectra’s odometer, when it hit 89,000 about two weeks ago. I’m a bit on edge right now about my car, because it has been acting a tiny bit weird here and there — squealing timing belt, lights dimming, acceleration sputtering out, hesitating or outright failing once in a great while. When our previous Kia Spectra did this, it was the beginning of the alternator dying. The dealership told us that the Kia Spectras are notorious for their alternators kicking the bucket between 88,000 – 90,000 miles.

When we got the first Kia repaired, we went straight to the dealer: the total of auto parts and labor cost us almost $500. Eek. This time around, I’m hoping to purchase an alternator directly from a supplier, even if it’s used, and have Dan and his brother put it in. Dealerships are notorious at reaming you on labor costs!

“Mommy broke the car”

Jenn — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:52:48 +0000

When my husband and I went car shopping, it wasn’t because we one day woke up and decided, “Hey, let’s go get a new car!” We went car shopping because we had to. A week before, I had gotten into a car accident. While I was the one that plowed my vehicle into the other person’s car, the accident wasn’t my fault. The other driver turned in front of me on a 45mph road, and worse yet, turned VERY. SLOWLY. I slammed on the brakes, but when you’re going 50mph and a car turns VERY. SLOWLY. in front of you, you would be an idiot to not expect this to happen:

So it happened, I wasn’t hurt, she wasn’t hurt, I wasn’t at fault, she was. Both vehicles were totaled. Her insurance company cut us a check for the value of our car, so we took that almost $5000 check and went car shopping. We didn’t have a lot of time to spend looking around, because our car rental, which was over $100/day, was only being covered for another day or two. We looked over a used toyota and tried out a Chevy Impala, but decided to look for something a little nicer, since we would be paying out the ass either way. So we settled on a 2005 Hyundai Sonata that had been a rental vehicle, and had less than 9000 miles on it. Thankfully, we chose a great car, and we’ve now had it for almost three years, with absolutely no problems.

It’s not always bad to buy used. Many times you can find nearly new cars — such as ours! — that have their prices slashed significantly simply because they were driven off the lot, or used for a few months. But shopping for a used car can be a daunting task, since you may not always know what you’re getting into. For this reason I highly recommend going to a very reputable dealer of used cars, and/or checking out buyyourcar.co.uk. The buyyourcar.co.uk website is free to use, and you can search for used cars by make, model, color, price range, location and more! One really great feature is you can choose to search for vehicles that are sold privately, by a dealership, or both!

If you’re cheap and you know it clap your hands

Jenn — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 02:09:14 +0000

We purchased our car, a 2005 Hyundai Sonata, in July of 2005. It had been a rental vehicle and had around 8,600 miles on it, so it was used. However, it had all of the paperwork with it, and the window stickers on it at the dealership clearly listed the inclusion of spiffy floor mats and keyless entry. That didn’t stop the dealership from trying to sell us the car sans floor mats ($80) and with the fobs needed in order to use the keyless entry ($120 apiece + $40 installation). I jumped and jived and bitched, and believe you me, we walked out of that dealership with two spanking new key fobs. The mats had to be ordered, and then ordered a second time because they ordered cream instead of charcoal, but we got those, too.

In the summer of 2006 I somehow lost a set of keys at my mom’s house. We checked both inside and outside, but didn’t think to check the trash can until after the trash had been taken out and away by the garbage collection company. Why they would have ended up in the trash is beyond me, but considering we never found them anywhere else…

So from then until the summer of 2007 we only had one key fob, because we never got around to spending the $180 for a new fob and the installation of it.

In November of 2007, a mere four months after purchasing the second key fob, my stupid husband handed our son a set of keys to play with. They turned up missing, obviously, but we didn’t realize it until three days later. Again, after the trash had gone out and been picked up by the garbage collection company. Did I mention at that time our son had an obsession with throwing things in the trash can? After we ripped the house apart three times and didn’t find the keys, we figured they went out with the trash.

So, a second key fob lost. Not to mention house keys, PO box keys, and car keys. My car key costs $6 to replace. The Hyundai car key costs $12 to replace. Expensive things.

Last week I went on eBay and found Hyundai key fobs for $14.95 each!!! Even with shipping, the cost of two didn’t equal HALF the cost of ONE key fob, if it had been purchased directly from the dealership. The seller also sent along instructions on how to access the configuration box, which is located behind the center console in our car. I found some more detailed directions and disassembly instructions today, so when Dan gets home tonight he’ll decide if he wants to risk ripping our $20k car apart and then putting it back together, or if we should just suck it up and pay the $40 to have the dealership configure the new fobs with our car.

My cheapness, let me show you it!