[Rant] Minor Rant III: For a Few Hollers More

Dave

Dave

Staff member
Bought a car for $1500 for my daughter. Took a lot of work to pay it all off but we finally got it done. Last month. This month (today, actually): Dropped the water pump and found out the gasket is leaking. Bye bye car.

This is only a minor rant because we still have an extra that she can use. But if something happens to any of the others, we'll be screwed again. Knock, meet wood.
 
Gared

Gared

Welp, 700 unplanned dollars later, I'm home from the eye doctor. And, as a bonus, in 7 to 10 days, I can go pick up my new glasses. Which means no night driving for 7 to 10 days because, well, sunglasses. At least my HSA account covered most of the cost, and I was able to get a LensCrafters account to cover the remainder, so it was no money out of pocket. However, my HSA should have been enough to cover everything. I guess it's true that we haven't been getting all of our bi-weekly deposits.
 
Dei

Dei

Trying to make pony ears from clay for my daughter's and my MLP cosplay. Made one perfectly. Forgot how I did it. Am now crying trying to make a pair. ;)
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Okay, so tell me if I'm a sucker or thinking needlessly cynically.

Did I just get rooked?

Car breaks down. Take car to mechanic who tells me that it's toast. Gives me the name of a tow truck driver who will tow it cheap - $60 - knowing that I'm going to take it to a junk shop for parts. I called the junk shop and they said if I could drive it in they'd give me $375. Tow driver shows up fast with the car and we talk. He wants to buy it for $300. His son will use it for a demo derby car. I know I'm out $75, but this way if it breaks down on the way there I'm not paying for 2 tows. I agree and he drives it away knowing that it will overheat if driven more than a mile or two.

Then it hit me. I had nothing but the mechanic's word that the car was toast. I never took it anywhere else for a second opinion and if it was just a hose like we originally thought it might be, then they could have fixed it cheap and then resold it for the $1500 I paid for it.

So did I get fleeced or am I over thinking things?
 
Hylian

Hylian

Ugh, I am so ready for this damn day to end.

I had no fucks to give but the day beat me up and took them anyways and now I just want to go home and crawl into a fetal position and watch some Netflix.
 
Gared

Gared

Dave said:
Okay, so tell me if I'm a sucker or thinking needlessly cynically.

Did I just get rooked?

Car breaks down. Take car to mechanic who tells me that it's toast. Gives me the name of a tow truck driver who will tow it cheap - $60 - knowing that I'm going to take it to a junk shop for parts. I called the junk shop and they said if I could drive it in they'd give me $375. Tow driver shows up fast with the car and we talk. He wants to buy it for $300. His son will use it for a demo derby car. I know I'm out $75, but this way if it breaks down on the way there I'm not paying for 2 tows. I agree and he drives it away knowing that it will overheat if driven more than a mile or two.

Then it hit me. I had nothing but the mechanic's word that the car was toast. I never took it anywhere else for a second opinion and if it was just a hose like we originally thought it might be, then they could have fixed it cheap and then resold it for the $1500 I paid for it.

So did I get fleeced or am I over thinking things?
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You could have been fleeced, but we'd need to know a lot more about the car and the gasket leak. For instance, what year, make, and model of car was it? Did the mechanic give you any indication of how badly the gasket was leaking? Did he identify said gasket as the head gasket? Did you check the hoses before or after the mechanic looked at the car? Did he quote you a price on replacing the water pump or the gasket? How many miles did the car have on it and in what general condition was it when you bought it, and when it had to be taken to the mechanic's? Are you, or is anyone you know, mechanically inclined in any way, shape or form; and do you have access to a driveway/flat space where car maintenance can be performed. Lastly, and most importantly, if you were fleeced, do you really want to know that you were fleeced by a mechanic and his tow-truck driving buddy, or do you want to live on, content in the knowledge that you're probably just over thinking this?

Edit: Blasted Stieny, always being faster on the draw.
 
Gared

Gared

Yeah, head gasket probably wasn't worth dealing with getting fixed, unless you're like me and you know a bunch of mechanically inclined rednecks. Maybe that's your problem with cars and other things that break down. You don't know enough rednecks.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Yup. I know that if it was the head gasket that's a car killer. But I never got it checked out by my mechanic, either. Oh well. I did it and it's over. I'm not sure if being trusting of strangers is a good thing or a bad one. Weird thing is I'm really cynical about a lot of things, but I trust almost unconditionally unless I have a reason not to. It's gotten me in trouble before and I suspect it will again.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

LittleSin said:
You dudes are gonig to have to wait but you ain't even in the ball park. You'd probably have to know Blue to get his choice. :)
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Blue is the main character's rival in the Generation 1 Pokemon games. In the anime series, Blue is known as Gary. Gary's last name is Oak, seeing as he's the grandson of Professor Oak. Professor Oak's first name is, canonically, Samuel. Samuel is a biblical name, from the Old Testament, the name of a judge who anointed Saul and David. Saul David is a British historian who specializes in military history, particularly the British Army. British soldiers are colloquially known as "Tommies", while in World War 2 their German enemies were known as "Jerries". Tom and Jerry are a well-known cat and mouse duo from Hanna-Barbera, and parodied in the Simpsons as Itchy and Scratchy. Itchy and Scratchy had a short-lived sidekick named Poochie. Poochie was a dog, otherwise known as a canine, sometimes written "K9". The K9 Thunder is an artillery cannon used by South Korea, and developed, believe it or not, by Samsung. Samsung is the world's largest smartphone manufacturer, and their flagship smartphone is the Galaxy series. A galaxy is a large collection of stars. Stars are giant balls of fusing hydrogen, turning the hydrogen into helium and trace amounts of other elements. The symbol for helium is He. "He" is also the third person masculine pronoun. A pronoun is a grammatical element, part of a larger group of words and phrases known as pro-forms. The word "grammar" comes from the Greek word grammatikē, or "art of letters".

So, it logically follows that your son is going to be named Art.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

My car's been running rough for the last year or so. I've been thinking it was a coil/plug thing, or maybe a vacuum thing, but some pretty intense research over the last couple weeks (now that it's starting to blink "check transmission" at me) leads me to believe it's actually the VSS/TSS (speed sensor) whacking out my timing and causing my shifting troubles. It's a $30 part, and pretty common with this model after 100k+ miles, so I figured if I could find out which thingie it was, I would go ahead and replace it.

Well, getting down under there with a flashlight showed me the condition of the tires is worse than I thought (the frame is bent, causing the tires to wear unevenly, but it'll be $1400-$2000 to fix the frame properly, so I haven't exactly jumped on it). I can see the steel belts. It's time for new tires (on the front at least). That'd be $250-300. Also, the passenger compartment is just about rusted through (I can see and touch the sound matting in many spots). I only paid about $4000 for this car, so it's looking like it'll be time to replace it once I pay it off in ... 7 months?

Oh man, I don't think I'm gonna be comfortable stretching it out that long. Got the oil changed today after putting it off an extra 4500 miles, gonna get tires as soon as possible, then it's gonna be half a year of holding my breath, I think.

--Patrick
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Washing Machine died on Tuesday and we just got a new one... so there's a good chunk of change gone while my mother is recuperating from knee surgery.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
They got it back up yesterday evening, but new DDOS attacks have started again this morning. I hope the perpetrators slip and fall ass first onto a box of rusty nails.
 
Gared

Gared

Apparently the kidney stone that I thought had passed last week had merely dislodged, moved, and has become stuck again further down the pipes. Hopefully it's only temporarily stuck this time. I think I'll take a hot bath tonight and see if I can coerce it into dislodging again. Have I mentioned how much I hate kidney stones?
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Domain Name: UGLYHILL.COM
Registry Domain ID: 1788178254_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.enom.com
Registrar URL: www.enom.com
Updated Date: 2014-02-21 02:10:10Z
Creation Date: 2013-03-22 18:03:33Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2015-03-22 18:03:33Z
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
...
Registrant Name: WEI WU
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street: ROOM 903, NO.11, LANE 710
Registrant Street: CAOYANG ROAD
Registrant City: SHANGHAI
Registrant State/Province: SH
Registrant Postal Code: 200063
Registrant Country: CN
...
Registrant Email: BRIDALBLVD@HOTMAIL.COM
...

Aww. I don't think I ever went through the archives. Hope they're still up at Archive.org.

--Patrick
 
WasabiPoptart

WasabiPoptart

figmentPez said:
Give them time, they cycle through flavors. Right now it's chorizo and teriyaki spam, but I think jalapeno spam rolls around next. They'll probably get to some italian version before they cycle back to black pepper.
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No they don't cycle through flavors here. We have all flavors possible, I think. I'll have to find the picture I took for a friend a couple of years ago of the Spam section in a grocery aisle.
 
WasabiPoptart

WasabiPoptart

This isn't the picture I took, but it's pretty close. Doesn't include all of the varieties that I usually see, like jalapeno, teriyaki, or turkey lite and they don't have the meals for one. It makes me think this is an older picture. So imagine a few more rows added to this.

meanwhile-in-hawaii-46271f.jpg
 
A

Anonymous

Anonymous

If Amazon needs to call about a problem with an order, and that order has a sex toy in it they need to say aloud, they should ask if it's a good time to talk before launching into naming the toy several times in one sentence, with details, because maybe you're in line at the bank sometimes.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Anonymous said:
If Amazon needs to call about a problem with an order, and that order has a sex toy in it they need to say aloud, they should ask if it's a good time to talk before launching into naming the toy several times in one sentence, with details, because maybe you're in line at the bank sometimes.
Click to expand...
"Yeah, that's what your loan went to, what of it?"
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
I'm in the CC field of a string of e-mails between our owner and an agency rep regarding an advertising contract we haven't received. Neither is hearing the other, nor answering with information that is actually related. It's like listening to your two deaf grandparents holler at each other from across the house, having two distinct separate conversations each to which the other is not actually a knowing party.
 
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