Thursday, March 01, 2007

Don’t Toy(ota) With Crappy Car Karma

I’ve written about My Crappy Car Karma before. I have only needed to Own A Car since I have lived in Los Angeles, after years of No Car Necessary To Live In New York City Bliss. But, in the Eight Short Years I have been A Car Owner, I have only had Really Bad Luck. The First Car I -- A 1986 Ford Escort With Only 30,000 Miles On It -- turned out to be A Real Humdinger, breaking down at least Once A Week. As a result, I was forced to Save Up My Waitressing Money and buy A Brand New Car, which Ran Great, except that it was Hit Three Times While Parked On The Street In Front Of My Apartment Building and until Everything Started To Go Wrong With It last year. Totally Awesome Boyfriend forbid me to Purchase Another American Made Vehicle, so I bought A Brand New Toyota RAV 4 last August. So far, So Good.

Well, until A Few Weeks ago when I noticed I was experiencing problems Driving in Stop And Start Traffic. It seems The Car Hesitates on occasion at 20 mph, before suddenly Switching Into Gear and Speeding Forward. It is Disconcerting and Seemingly Dangerous. But, I can’t imagine how My Brand New Car, with only 6000 Miles On It could be having An Automatic Transmission Problem. At first, I figured This All Must Be In My Head. I am So Used to Having Automobile Trouble that I am Looking For Signs Of Suspicious Symptoms! Could I have become A HypoCARdriac!?

I finally broke down and Called The Toyota Dealer to schedule An Appointment to have The Car Checked Out. When he told me that A Transmission Problem with Highly Unusual with Toyotas, I confessed to being Terribly Embarrassed, too. But, I still insisted I Bring In The Car. Despite the possibility of being A HypoCARdraic, I really don’t think this Weirdness is in My Mind. They were Very Apologetic and Everything Will Be Under Warranty and they are giving me A Rental Car and All. Hopefully, they can Right What’s Wrong.

Of course, I have this Horrible Fear that They Won’t Find Anything Wrong With My Car and I will have to Continue To Drive It and The Problem Will Get Worse And Worse and Warrantyless and leave it to Me to have been The One Person In The World To Have Purchased A Toyota That Turns Out To Be A Total Lemon and Then I Will Have To Fight Them And Deal With Lemon Laws And That will Totally Suck.

But, it is Kind Of Funny, as well. After all, that is Crappy Car Karma for you.

5 comments:

Green said...

My first car was a used Ford Escort too! I bought it on Jericho Tnpk, with something like 90,000 miles on it, and ran it into the ground. Fixed Or Repaired Daily - I had to hear that every single time I answered anyone who asked what kind of car I had.

Maybe whatever is wrong with your car will be some kind of recall problem, and they'll fix it for free and you'll never have any more car problems again.

Will said...

My first car was a 1978 Pontiac Grand Prix, and as a Long Island native I don't need to tell you that I cruised in it. I had amazing car karma for years until last year when I had to replace the transmission on my Hyundai and then needed to put an extra $800 bucks into it last week in order to pass smog inspection. I hope it's a minor and quickly fixed issue.

Anonymous said...

Instead of Pimp My Ride They Should Call It Crappy Car Karma!!

Amy L said...

eeek! good luck!!!!!

Aimee said...

No comment on this; just popping by to say hello. :)