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Thursday, July 26, 2007

Gearing Up For School...

The new school year starts 8/27 and it’s time to gear up to be ready for it.

By “gear up”, I mean that in the literal sense. I was hoping to make it through at least one more year with “school car”, but in the last month or so I seem to have lost 40% of the gears on my manual stick Saturn and it also, desperately, needs new tires.

Try accelerating from the stop light when it goes green while the guy behind you starts honking because you stalled it trying to start in 3rd gear.

I finally took it in to the local mechanic this week to see just how much damage to the bank account it was going to take to restore 1st and 2nd gears.

My dilemma comes down to deciding if I should dump the required cash for repairs to keep it going for another year or attempt to replace it with someone else’s decent ride that might be in better condition for about the same money? If I have transmission problems I know that’s BIG bucks. (…and not FUJI bucks, either)

Luckily, the problem turned out to be a broken shifter. The transmission and clutch are still just fine. It looks like the $250 to get it back functioning is still worth keeping it.

Now I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that “school car” doesn’t get a flat before the first new school year subbing check shows up at the end of September.

If I can hold out for a while maybe I can get me a NEW cheap Tata Motors putt putt.






3 comments:

Law and Order Teacher said...

I owned a Saturn and it was a fine car. I'm glad that you could save your car. We gave our Saturn to the kid next door and he worked on it and drives it to this day (It's a 92). My son has owned three different Saturns and has loved each of them. Some cars are just good cars. Saturns seem to be just that.

NYC Educator said...

Hey man good luck with that. My brother had two Saturns, buying the second after falling in love with the first, and he didn't have as much luck as law and order teacher, unfortunately.

But 250 bucks is nothing compared to the hassle of getting another car. What's the saying? The headache you know is better than the one you don't?

The MAN Fan Club said...

My first NEW car was a 95 Saturn. sold it a year later for more than I paid. Not a bad car.

Yes, we start with kids on the 27th, ready or not!

TheMANFC