Ford, oh how I hate you!
My car has been an immense amount of trouble in the past 6 months. First in may the thermostat and water pump went kaplooey. This wasn’t fun to get repaired, because not only was it not super cheap, but it took them several days to get the parts. Then, a month later, the new thermostat died and I had to get that replaced. It was free, but it still ate up a day of my time having a car.
In early August I got rear-ended on 101. I had decent damage to the rear of my car, and the bill was $3200 to get it repaired. I have a $300 deductible, so I didn’t have to spend all that much, but it still was annoying, especially since they had a hard time getting parts for my car too.
Then yesterday the driver’s side window stopped working, with the window down two-thirds of the way. I brought it in to get it repaired today, and it’s going to cost me another $300. And they have to get the part from Sacramento so I can’t even get my car back until tomorrow. Oh, and the final annoyance is that the battery on my car is leaking, and has low current, and needs to be replaced. The car is 5 years old, so I don’t find this to be unreasonable. Oh, but because my car isn’t super common, only motorcraft makes the proper batteries. So I am screwed into getting it down at the dealer. No labor is involved, but it is $75 for the battery, which is a good $15 more than a battery should cost on the open market!
Oh, by the way my car is a 1998 Ford Contour, which really hasn’t been all that much trouble for me until the past 6 months. But now it seems to be going Ford crazy. I’m never buying an American car again!