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  • My car hates me and is trying to kill me

    So, after my car accident in April I had to get a new (used) car, and I should have gotten a different one, because it (a '95 jetta) has been out to get me ever since.

    First thing early last fall was when my brakes went out. Just one morning went out to start the paper route and I had no brake pressure whatsoever. That at least was a fairly cheap fix that Hubs was able to do...one of my rear brakes was hemorrhaging fluid from....a cylinder thing? (I don't know cars very well).

    Shortly after that my oil coolly thingy started hemorrhaging oil, and so Hubs replaced it. (I don't know what it's called. My prior car didn't have one. I guess it cools my oil or something?)

    After that, my coolant system started acting up. That was something the mechanic had to deal with. It turns out the fans just decided to stop working so my engine kept trying to overheat.

    Then on the Interstate, my gas pedal suddenly went out. Fortunately Hubs was with me and able to re-hook the cable back up. Like, those things aren't supposed to disconnect that easily. But my car is possessed like that.

    Then in November my clutch went out on the paper route. The last car I had, the clutch warned me when it was going out, but this car just decided to snap one morning like "Screw you!"

    Then last month the door latch went out so I couldn't shut my door. We had to creatively bolt it shut until we could get it to the mechanic and I had to crawl over my passenger seat to get in and out.

    Shortly after that, my car decided to find and pick up little metal bits to send both my rear tires flat, each one just a couple weeks apart. Joke's on the car, though...I have free replacement warranty on both those tires!

    Then my suspension went out on my front driver side tire. That was very expensive (more expensive than the clutch!).

    Then yesterday, I went to pick up Hubs, and as I parked I noticed smoke. It was pouring out of my driver-side door. My car was trying to kill me with fire! It got hot enough to shatter my window. We managed to get it put out right before the fire department arrived. My power lock had shorted out.

    While we were fighting it, Hubs had disconnected my battery, and since my alarm is tied to that lock, it went off any time we tried to reconnect it. If there was a fuse or other way to disconnect it, we could not discover it. (The manual did not give up any info, either.) So we had to tow it 30 miles back to town and have the mechanic fix my car again. Fortunately my mechanic was kind enough to hang around the shop for an extra hour so we could get it in his garage instead of leaving my car out overnight with a busted window (the neighborhood there is a bit shady and it was forecasted to rain).

    I don't suppose anyone wants to buy a devil-spawned totally reliable '95 jetta off me? Anyone?

    Bonus: One of Hubby's coworkers has the same colored Jetta as me, though a couple years younger. After my oil coolly thingy went out, his did. After my coolant system went, he had issues with his coolant system. We're still waiting on his clutch to go out (though his is an automatic and mine's a manual), and yesterday he saw my car door smoking and was like "Oh HELL no!" because whatever seems to happen to mine seems to happen to his.
    Last edited by bhskittykatt; 02-13-2014, 09:52 PM.
    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

  • #2
    Odd, I thought Christine was a Plymouth. -.-

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    • #3
      I think your car and mine could be good friends.

      http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...d.php?t=103782

      Jester hasn't been around your car, has he?
      At the conclusion of an Irish wedding, the priest said "Everybody please hug the person who has made your life worth living. The bartender was nearly crushed to death.

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      • #4
        Damn...and I thought some of *my* cars were bad
        Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines. --Enzo Ferrari

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        • #5
          Welcome to life with an aging German car.

          All joking aside- German cars aren't known for aging gracefully. All the problems you described are sadly typical of a Volkswagen, Porsche, BMW, or Mercedes product over 8 years old.

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          • #6
            Mine over the two years I've had it (possibly 3) has had:

            -A crack in the engine head.
            -The starter occasionally fritz out (namely something in the starter is stuck, so it makes a huge "SCREEEEECH" noise)
            -one of the mufflers needing to be replaced.
            -the LEADS needed to be replaced.

            And now we're not running on all four cylinders for god knows what reason. (We suspect it's either a spark plug replacement or I dented the cylinder)
            The best professors are mad scientists! -Zoom

            Now queen of USSR-Land...

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            • #7
              If he has an automatic transmission, he doesn't *have* a clutch.

              The thing with 20-year-old cars is that at that sort of age, *everything* is a wear item. So even the stuff that shouldn't need to be maintained under normal circumstances can and will go wrong.

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              • #8
                I miss my Mitsubishi! Yeah, it was old, too ('97 Mirage), but at least it had the courtesy of spacing things out. My clutch went out, and it waited a whole year before the transmission went. It was a lot easier to work on, too. It was a simple car and I loved it and it ultimately sacrificed itself to save my life. This VW is the opposite in every way...
                Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

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                • #9
                  Quoth Gravekeeper View Post
                  Odd, I thought Christine was a Plymouth. -.-
                  recycling is the debil!
                  Honestly.... the image of that in my head made me go "AWESOME!"..... and then I remembered I am terribly strange.-Red dazes

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                  • #10
                    Quoth GreaseMonkey View Post
                    Welcome to life with an aging German car.

                    All joking aside- German cars aren't known for aging gracefully. All the problems you described are sadly typical of a Volkswagen, Porsche, BMW, or Mercedes product over 8 years old.
                    <looks at her 95 jetta and 96 jetta and snickers> Only thing wrong with my older VWs is the 96 jetta took a turkey hit to the windshield and we haven't bothered to replace it yet as we still have the 95, the 06 and the momvan ... but until it hit the bird, it was in use at least 2-3 times a week, the roomie used it to do errands. We have been planning on giving the 2 older VWs away but just haven't gotten around to doing it yet.

                    Of course Rob's Navy induced habit of regular routine maintenance on stuff is probably why we don't have mechanical issues with the VWs. Not to mention, he can fix everything that does go wrong with it, Mechanicals are great in a relationship - saves on repair bills.

                    [though we did get rid of the VW collection we did have, the insurance was getting purgatorial - the 58 beetle, the 64 squareback, the 72 van, the 74 not-a-superbeetle ... but when you don't have a second income, you can't have toys.]
                    EVE Online: 99% of the time you sit around waiting for something to happen, but that 1% of action is what hooks people like crack, you don't get interviewed by the BBC for a WoW raid.

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                    • #11
                      Quoth AccountingDrone View Post
                      [though we did get rid of the VW collection we did have, the insurance was getting purgatorial - the 58 beetle, the 64 squareback, the 72 van, the 74 not-a-superbeetle ... but when you don't have a second income, you can't have toys.]
                      Depends on the toys in question. I have a '70 MGB GT to play with. It's on classic plates, and carries classic car insurance. Insuring that car for an entire year...costs less than 2 months to insure the daily-driver. Plus, like a Bug, the cars are very easy to work on, and parts are inexpensive.

                      I nearly bought a Bug some years ago--a '66 in two-tone blue. Someone had restored it, and did an awesome job. Unfortunately, at the time, I didn't have a garage and the time to give it the attention it deserved. Pittsburgh winters, plus all the crap they throw on the roads, would have trashed it in short order.
                      Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines. --Enzo Ferrari

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                      • #12
                        Quoth protege View Post
                        Depends on the toys in question. I have a '70 MGB GT to play with. It's on classic plates, and carries classic car insurance. Insuring that car for an entire year...costs less than 2 months to insure the daily-driver. Plus, like a Bug, the cars are very easy to work on, and parts are inexpensive.

                        I nearly bought a Bug some years ago--a '66 in two-tone blue. Someone had restored it, and did an awesome job. Unfortunately, at the time, I didn't have a garage and the time to give it the attention it deserved. Pittsburgh winters, plus all the crap they throw on the roads, would have trashed it in short order.
                        Without a second income we are just scraping by - literally can't afford even bare minimum state and *registration* costs. I suppose we could give up eating alternate weekends ... my health costs are mounting even with tricare - we have already hit the catastrophic cap for the year, and I still have an upper and lower GI series, an MRI, getting my gallbladder yanked, another run at my orthopod, hopefully 18 sessions of physio [at $80 per as my co-pay] and anything random that isn't already planned out. Something like $4000 in my share of the copay, and any medication changes that we can't get at the Navy base hospital for free [like victoza and one of my pain meds. *sigh*] Oh, and it is time to replace my wheelchair, which can go for anything from $150 to $1000 depending on what we decide I need. My annual income is already spent for the year and it is not even March.,
                        EVE Online: 99% of the time you sit around waiting for something to happen, but that 1% of action is what hooks people like crack, you don't get interviewed by the BBC for a WoW raid.

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                        • #13
                          Quoth bhskittykatt View Post
                          I don't suppose anyone wants to buy a devil-spawned totally reliable '95 jetta off me? Anyone?
                          Ask next year and I'll totally take you up on it. By that time I figure everything in it will be less than two years old, the way you're going....

                          Seriously, I hope the bulk of the bad carma is out of the way. The business with the imitative second car is just plain weird.

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                          • #14
                            Quoth sms001 View Post
                            Ask next year and I'll totally take you up on it. By that time I figure everything in it will be less than two years old, the way you're going....
                            That's probably true!

                            This morning my car started making this horrible metallic scraping noise, like the shrieks of a banshee. I just got back from the mechanic to get a bearing replaced...
                            Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

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                            • #15
                              Could it be the fan belt? Those make a distinctive squeal when they start slipping. A very easy fix.

                              The characteristic noise.

                              More than you probably know already about the fan belt.

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