Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Car and Bike

Limping to the Repair Shop
When Little Egypt and I drove to Kansas City using the little car, we noticed something was really wrong.  You may remember that I "gave" Rico my car "to use" as I mostly ride my bike.  The car pretty much sits at his house (he lives up on the KU Campus in the "student ghetto" with his roommates) and well--I was hoping this would not be the case, but it appears Rico in a very short time burned the clutch out of the car...

Yeah I was pretty mad.  I drove the car to the shop and left it there for them to look over.  I rode my bike home so I could get back to applying for jobs--everything in this one-horse town is two miles away...

The repair I got quoted from the shop was between $1200 to $1600 for a new clutch.  That depends on what has to be replaced.  I'll look for other quotes--but pretty much the mechanics we use (and we trust) said the culprit was, and I quote them, "AGGRESSIVE DRIVING"

The wife of course blames me and says I can't drive for shit.  Hmm.  I like drove this car for almost 10 years then within three months of him having the car the clutch is burned out?  Let's just say the topic of the car is not brought up at our house right now...

Rico--well, he's a young dude.  He does, in my opinion, drive this poor machine like its some kind of high-performance race car.  It is not.  It's a small four cylinder, five speed economy car.  He drives fast--which is really annoying because Lawrence is so small, you can't even get up to 40 MPH.  There's a stop sign or stop light almost every block...  He's one of those people that revs up, bolts from one stop sign to the other.  I find most annoying is that he corners really sharp and quick, such that if you're the passenger you get flung around.  I'm like, "What the Fuck?  Slow down!"  And he's got the stereo blaring to boot--noise, not music and I'm saying to him, "Turn that Shit off..."

So I sound like an old man--but come on?  He ran the car into the ground.  What's worse--he's totally fucking indifferent.

I have my car back and now we have to all cool down and figure out how we're going to pay for this mess.  Little Egypt says that if it cost that much to fix, we should just buy him a new car.  Believe me, I just had to leave and go ride my bike and try and not go the fook off in a rage.

Say what you will--have pity on me--or what ever.  He can buy his own car, pay for the gas and insurance himself.  If he's going to have debt he can lean about payments and replacing shit that breaks and how much things cost...

Okay.  Cheers!  Bruce

3 comments:

Dan Trued said...

Just had to replace my brakes on front and back on my '91 nissan and it cost $423. The estimated worth of the car is $400.00 so here is the equation:

$423 + $400 = $400

So that hurt, but that is car stuff.

Dan

starstuff said...

I agree with you on the kids pay for the car thing. They don't learn to take care of stuff until they learn the value of a dollar as it pertains to equipment. Besides, college kids in college towns can make do with bikes. I biked all through college. Theres even a few bands out there that travel by bike I've heard of. A clutch driven by a cautious driver will last almost forever. My Dad's clutch went after he let us kids start driving his truck too as I recall.

Bruce's Bike Blog said...

I think that all the money I saved in gas riding my bike here in Lawrence for work and errands the last two years equals the cost of the new clutch--which was wrecked in less than three months... I really never want to have to buy a car ever again.

Cheers you guys! Bruce