Anybody Who Owns His Own Car Deserves It

Alan King wrote a book in the early sixties titled “Anybody Who Owns His Own Home Deserves It”. In the book, which is ripe with sarcasm, Alan proceeds to tell the reader of all of the joys (and expenses) he has encountered since he has become a home owner. Well in slightly over a year I had several pitfalls that are starting to make me question the whole car ownership concept.

Last summer coming home from the cottage we had an accident in which the family van was totaled, thankfully no-one was hurt. My son was driving and it was an at-fault accident so while we got some money from our insurance company, we didn’t get near enough to replace the van. For those of you that are concerned about the Insurance Company, there is no need; they have increased my rates so I am sure they will get their money back with interest.

Last fall when Tina and the girls were at the Mall the car was stolen. As the car is more than 12 years old the police assured us that in all likely-hood we would get the car back within a couple of weeks. They suspected that it was stolen by a bunch of kids out for a joyride. Almost exactly 2 weeks later the car was located a couple of miles from the house. It was indeed taken by some kids out for a joyride, when we got the car back it was full of used drug paraphernalia and fast food wrappers. After spending several hundred dollars to get the car fixed and the ignition replaced, the Parking Tickets and 407 tolls started rolling in.

Last winter the car took another hit as Cory slid the car into a Hydro pole. Once again we were lucky that no people were hurt, unfortunately the car wasn’t so lucky. With Cory’s track record it is a good thing that he is apprenticing to become an Auto-Body Mechanic. So off the car goes to his work so that he can work on it during his slow periods to try and save us a couple of bucks on repairs. After spending more than $1000 dollars to get the front end fixed up, we get the car back only to find that the transmission took a beating and is not performing properly.

Instead of spending another $1500 - $2000 to get the transmission fixed we chose to let it go and take our chances. So last week when we got the call from Cory saying that he was on the expressway and the car had broken down we fully expected the problem to be the transmission. We had the car towed to the garage, where we learned that it wasn’t the transmission, it was the engine. A 12 year old car with a blown engine and a bad transmission just isn’t worth fixing so off to the wreckers it went.

So now I am in the market for a new used car, which is always painful for me as I am not the type of person who gets excited by cars. I think of cars as expensive necessities that I would love to be able to live without. Maybe I should just forget the whole thing and get bicycles and bus passes for the whole family.

Also the next time you are at the bookstore keep an eye out for my brother’s new book titled “Anybody Who Owns His Own Boat Deserves It”.