remind me why i own a car again ...

£40 a day for a Mazda 6, Arnold Clark charge. Vroom.

GOOD NEWS:

cost for fixing bumper: nowt.

NOT-QUITE-SO-GOOD NEWS:

method of fixing bumper (bearing in mind i specified a cheap and not necessarily elegant solution): drilling a small hole near where it meets the wheel arch and fixing it on with a cable tie.

it seems about as sturdy as it used to be, if not sturdier ... but now, of course, i have a little bit of plastic sticking out the side of my car. hmm.

i might just get a new bumper. and get the irritating little dent some funster at the gym decided to put in my front offside wing sorted out at the same time.

cue stet saying "nah, get a new car" in five ... four ... three ...

Maybe you could do this for the dent?
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/501379/remove_car_dent_with_airduster/

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/33/56660393_ef5a4f9af5.jpg

spencer: yeh, considered it, but i need the bumper fixed, so ...

stet: swivel.

sorry 'bout the bad car day, grimly - you might've caught it off my little brother.

Mr. Jaq and I talked about the possibility of getting rid of the car this weekend. Living in a place with good public transportation (esp. if we move to Capitol Hill) and having a service like Flexcar, it's feasible but something I'm not ready for just yet.

jaq, yr brother's story is bleakly amusing ;)

anyway. since i started this thread, some little shit decided to nick two of my hubcaps. "fuck this," i thought, and took the car to the mitsubishi garage in paisley. "gimme a new bumper," i said. "and some hubcaps, yo."

cost of new bumper: not much. cost of fitting: negligible. cost of PAINTING THE FUCKER: vast and staggering.

cost of ONE SINGLE HUBCAP: mind-quaking.

length of time in the garage so far: ONE FUCKING WEEK. fair enough, i did say "no hurry", but this is absurd. especially given that, when i rang them on tuesday, they said: "it'll be ready tomorrow." when i rang them at 9am this morning (thursday) and said, right, i'm on my way, they said: "oh, sorry, it'll be ready by noon." which was no use. i start work at noon.

that's PHOENIX MITSUBISHI in LINWOOD, PAISLEY. the same people who have previously demonstrated their immense problems with the concept of "nearside" and "offside" when it comes to ordering parts, and also with the concept of "no, i'm not paying for the part you wrongly ordered, you fannies".

anyway. tomorrow morning i will go and get my wee colt back, complete with new bumper. i will then drive to the crappy sub-halfords place round the back of lidl and buy a set of 13" trims.

AND THEN i'm gonna sell it. oh yes.

...

and, er, buy an alfa GTV. no, really.

i mean. it's a nice car, the colt. it's a zippy drive and surprisingly fun. but it's now starting to cost me some serious cash: it's getting old, and bits keep falling off or breaking or wearing out. if i'm gonna have to spend money on a car (and oh, with an alfa, i'm sure i will) i'd rather be doing it on ... well, a GTV.

the clincher: discovering a wee backstreet garage a couple of miles away that specialises in alfa repairs and servicing.

not sure how long this process will take. i might not even go through with it. but i'll post the occasional progress report ;)

In, errm, related news, we're using a Flexcar for the first time tonight, to test it out. Cuz the place we really really want to move to doesn't have parking and a garage will run us around $200/month and the insurance cost will go up DRAMATICALLY and hell, we'll be right by the main bus thing and can get anywhere, right?

I love this Prius though, I don't want to be rid of it. I want it to be waiting at my beck and call, safely (and cheaply) housed in a warm, nearby place.

Drove a hybrid Honda Civic flexcar Friday and it was okay - LOTS of road noise, analog gauges (hello 1990s!), not as roomy as the Prius nor as easy to maneuver into a small parking space. The flexcar thing went well on Friday: wave your passcard over the windshield and the doors unlock, the key's in the glovebox and the gas credit card is in the visor. But, when we went to pick up the same car on Sunday morning, no car in sight. A quick check of the surrounding parking lot confirmed - no Flexcars here. Took forever to get them on the phone (partly our fault), and since we were using this as a backup only, we just canceled the reservation. Had we really needed a car, they would have put us into another close-by one (it's actually miles away from our pickup point) or paid for a cab to get us to and from our destination. So, not as convenient when the car's gone missing.

update: GTV plan already fallen by the wayside. can't be arsed explaining why in detail. key words: girlfriend, provisional licence, insurance. you can probably work it out for yourselves :/

in fairness to her: she said go for it anyway; don't bother about insuring her for it. but that would be wrong of me. and a bit pointless.

so the plan goes on hold until she learns to drive :)

and, having got the colt back from the valet place, i thought, hang on, i fucking like this car a lot. as long as no more bits fall off for a while, i'll be damned happy.

took some pix anyway so when i do come to sell it i'll have them there. will post them on the pix thread at some point soon. still not sure about my replacement wheel trims, but fuck it.

a tiny part of me thinks "get some alloys".

I think you should, on your way back from Phoenix Mitsubishi, go round past the alloy place at the back of the train station in Paisley which has a great big sign outside illustrating how they sell ALLOY'S (sic). Get all your rage-inciting needs fulfilled at once!