Happy Birthday, Your Truck is a POS

Talk about a sucky birthday. I went out geocaching with a friend early in the morning, and that was about the only good part of the entire day. I found 11 caches, and we DNF’ed 2. And then both of our GPS units died, and he forgot to bring the spare batteries.

Anyway, I got a call from the shop about the truck while we were out. He remarked at his surprise that it was still running with how many miles are on it (almost a quarter million), then proceeded to list out the repairs and the general estimated cost for me. And I wanted to punch something.

The entire exhaust system from the carb out needs replaced. Goody. Wipers need replaced. “Somebody cut the e-brake cable out.” “No, that broke off quite a while ago.” Front brakes need replaced. Rear brakes just barely passed. Front brake line is cracked. Needs all new tires. That’s all he gave me, but I think there’s more, because apparently my mom called him and he gave her a dozen things. Ballpark cost? $1000-$1200. Yay.

After some long, hard thinking, I figured the only thing to do would be to sell the scooter and either use that money to fix the truck, or to buy a new car. I really, really don’t want to sell the scooter. But, as Dave Ramsey says, “you need to sell the car,” which, in this case, is a scooter. However, I just talked to my mom about it a while ago, and it dawned on me that there’d still be a loan on it to take care of, and after that, there wouldn’t be anything left for repairs or a new car. And, as she keeps reminding me, I need to have a vehicle (appropriate for winter driving) to get a job, and get to a job. End decision? Fix the truck.

The damn thing is only worth $200. I only paid $1200 for it. I already put probably twice that amount into fixing it since I bought it. They say that, like in poker, you have to know when to hold them, and when to fold them. Anyone in a different situation would absolutely scrap it and buy something else. However, right now, this is the easiest, cheapest, fastest, and likely only possible solution for me. I also made a promise to myself when I bought it that I’d drive it till the wheels fell off, so I wouldn’t do something stupid like this again.

So here we are.

P.S. Magically enough, even though my checking account was at -150, charges are still being allowed through. So now it’s -180. Great.

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