First Car!

[The Jenn]

Long post is long, but I'm excited! Please tell the stories of your first (or most recent, or most memorable) cars, if you're so inclined. :heart:

I'll preface this by saying that I'm twenty-three and lame. I only got my license two years ago and I've never been especially comfortable with driving. In fact, I downright hated it, and I'm still uneasy. But! This is already starting to change a little bit, so hopefully the trend continues.

I bought my first car one week ago today! Sept 8, Mom and I drove a little less than an hour northeast to purchase a little blue 2001 Ford Focus SE that we'd test driven a few days prior. We'd been looking for several weeks, comparing makes and models and prices and features and everything else you can think of. I knew what I could afford and I knew I wanted a small vehicle, so we went from there.

Mom talked down the price by a few hundred and I paid cash, which I'd been saving for a while now. No car payment! Drove the car home on Wednesday, which was both scarier and more exciting than I'd expected. It was a beautiful drive on smooth roads. Got it home and started doing a more in-depth investigation under the hood with Dad than we'd gotten to do before. He was explaining fluids, parts, etc. when Mom noticed something a little odd. A part sitting half-tilted? Loose? What the heck was it? We knew they did the alignment, inspection, etc. and fixed a few small issues we'd noted before we took the car home.

Turns out there was an issue with the engine mount and it wasn't... "mounted" properly. Kind of rusted on the bottom and loose on the top, sooooo, yah. Something they should have noticed during inspection. We called the small place we bought it from and they told us to bring it back up the next day for them to take a look. The guy who owns the lot also owns an auto shop right next door.

We get it up there and leave it. The mount is replaced and we drive up the next day to get it. Visit a friend while we're up there, then return to the lot... and it's making kind of a funky noise. Thankfully there were still a few mechanics working late in the shop, and they re-settled and tightened the mount six different ways before they were satisfied. Drove it home.

Pulling into the drive way to the house, I hear this weird 'pop/snap' noise and then something starts rattling a little bit. Obviously not a good sound. We can't figure out what's causing it after two days and numerous investigations. We change the fluids in the car and still don't know. One of the front tires is a little beat up and iffy and the others are slightly worn, so I pay for the front two and Mom says she'll pay for the back if I just get all four new. Kay! Great!

The guys replacing the tires tell us that a spring in our front passenger side has snapped and could be a huge hazard if I go over a bump and it comes in contact with the wheel. Also, the back alignment is off, which is something the seller told us they did. Confused, but grateful to know what the sound is, I pay them for the tires and we go home. Today, we call the seller and explain, and they tell us to bring the car back up and they'll see what they can do.

Turns out that Ford had a "voluntary" recall on those springs, so they're getting their local Ford dealership to replace both front springs for free! Plus they're fixing the alignment, and tightening the parking break.

I've owned the car a week now and it's already been a bit of a wild ride. I honestly expected it coming in, though, and the dealership has been more than fair. I'm satisfied in my dealings with them, even if I'm a bit frustrated that some of this is necessary. Eh. Overall, happy.

Hopefully I'll have it back soon and this mess will be cleared up for a little while!

[Callypso]

Jen, this made me super, super nostalgic for my first car...

And by the by, you're not lame... I didn't get my driver's license until I was 19, and this was after nearly all of my friends (save 3 or 4, myself included) already had theirs and had been driving for years. I had severe driving anxiety and was terrified of getting in an accident and hurting myself or others. My dad bought me a clunker when I was 16 or 17 to encourage me to learn how to drive... Obviously it didn't work right away, haha.

Although I didn't buy it myself, I still consider this my "first" car: It was a 1995 green Ford Taurus station wagon (awww yeahhh, classy!) that a gazillion miles on it. My dad bought it off from one of the doctors from the hospital he works at. The previous owner had had a dog (as was evidenced by the white fur that took probably me a dozen vacuum attempts to get rid of) and the cloth ceiling of the car had been scratched up -yes scratched- by the owner's kids. Also, I later found bouncy balls, pens, markers and other assorted random things when I inherited the car. Clearly, the previous owner hadn't bothered to clean the vehicle before selling it, and my dad hadn't bothered to properly clean the interior in the 2+ years we had it before I finally learned to drive. DX Guh-ross.

Anyway, despite all its many flaws, I loved and drove the shit out of this car. I drove it through my Junior College years, I drove it the 500+ miles to the 4-year university I was to attend (the back seats folded down, so I shoved everything I owned/could take with me in ONE go into this thing and moved sans help...), I drove it up and down and up and down and up and down the state from the 4-year and back home. I put THOUSANDS of miles on this thing, not to mention the various family trips my dad borrowed it for, the spring/winter/summer vacations with my friends and various other shenanigans.

It had three major breakdowns during my ownership:

The first was on a family trip. The fan belt crapped out on a trip to Yosemite (yeah, super fun) and we were stuck in the Valley for 3 days while the little auto body sent out for parts. In the meantime, my dad had burned himself several times pouring water into the engine and doing various things he shouldn't have been doing on the side of the road to keep it going until we made it inside the park. (My dad's a fix-it kinda guy.) The car finally gave out about 10 miles from the park and we literally had to camp about 20-30 feet from the side of the road and wait for a ranger to drive by and pick us up in the morning.

The second one was shortly after I moved down-state for my first 4-year college: The S-Belt snapped right when the water heater crapped out. I was all alone and had to negotiate with the auto body shop (who by the way, gave me a load of shit because I was female and I had told them what was wrong with the vehicle, vis a vie my dad being on the phone and my having given him a physical description of the damage - it turns out my dad was right, so SUCK IT MOFOS) with my dad arguing with them over the phone. Lots of fun. It was fixed and made several more journeys when I gave up at that particular 4-year.

The last, and final misadventure of the Granny Wagon, as we so lovingly called her (or Dakota if we were feeling particularly nice), was when I was visiting my boyfriend for the weekend before transferring to a new 4-year. She had been making some strange noises, which wasn't all that unusual, and I was pulling out of my boyfriend's garage to head home Sunday evening (I was working full time before returning to college) and it made a horrible loud POP/CRUNCH noise and just died. I managed to get it back into the garage and that was it. It wouldn't start, nothing. I missed 3 days of work (oh darn) while dealing with the auto body. It turned out the transmission was dead and it would cost more to replace it than we had originally paid for the car. At that point we decided it was time for retirement... I donated it to some place that would fix it up, sell it, and give the money to charity.

I loved that P.O.S. and will never forget the good times we had together.

Currently, I'm driving the "Family Car" (i.e. extra car to be shared amongst the siblings), a 1997 black Ford Taurus Escort Sport (woo woo!) and my boyfriend and I are saving up to buy a vehicle of our own. (He had one, but that's another suuuuuper long story, haha.)

Enjoy vehicle ownership, Jen. You will form a relationship with that car, whether you're still nervous to drive or not. It will be your friend and companion through many a drive.

And now that I've written a novel:

Congratulations!!!

[The Jenn]

Reading your story was absolutely delightful. Thank you for typing it all up! You give me hope. Already the drive from here to Chestertown and back several times over the course of the last week has gotten me more driving time than pretty much all of my other experience combined. Well, practical experience. Cough.

I still need to come up with a name for her, but she drives smoothly and she turns beautifully, so I'm excited. The simple fact that I'm excited is... exciting. *snerk*

Your old wagon sounds like a serious tank. :3 In the good way. What sorts of cars are you and the boy thinking about?

[Callypso]

Oh, the Granny Wagon was DEFINITELY a tank. Actually, that's the reason my dad got her for me in the first place... I initially balked at driving that huge thing, but my dad said, "Listen, if some asshole tries to drive you off the road - and succeeds- you'll be fine." He proved the point to me on a family trip - he was behind the wheel- and some asshat in a giant SUV tried to merge into our lane with 2 inches of space... the guy essentially tried to run us into the ditch, but there was no pushing out the Granny Wagon and my seasoned driver dad. Needless to say, I shut up about it after that. haha.

As far as our desired car goes, we have our sights set on a Suburu WRX Wagon in blue, (2002-2004 models). Yes, it's another wagon, but it's badass enough to be more appropriate (according to us) for our age group.

We thought about it a lot, and as much as we love Toyotas, Hondas and Fords ('ole reliables!), we wanted to get something a little more "fun" but would still be practical and not a total gas guzzler. We wanted to be able to go on trips, take friends with us and have plenty of space for cargo, et. al., but not have it be so huge that we can't park in the city. Basically, it's sporty enough for a young couple but also utilitarian enough to make up for any excess.

...And you can't get much more awesome than rally blue. XD

www.subdriven.com/news/publish/Features/article_100.shtml

[Greenie]

I crashed my first car... kinda. XD

Long story short: Freak storm snow in mid-April (Wisconsin. It happens. I should have been prepared, but I wasn't.), getting onto the highway at regular highway speeds (65mph) guy in front of me was doing ~45mph, was going to hit him, shifted lanes, fishtailed, hit the median instead. Imagine the frame of your car. Now imagine it shifted in a circular motion one foot to the right. That was my baby, Beatrice - a silver 2005 PT Cruiser.

Beatrice 2 is a blue 2003 PT Cruiser. I'm not sure why my parents love me so much. Then again, aside from that incident, I'm a model driver XD No tickets, not even been pulled over.

[Harpsdesire]

My first car, Delores, was a dark blue 1998 Ford Taurus Sedan. I was a nervous driver, but I ended up really attached to my car. I got to be a good driver in my reliable, non-sporty wheels, and one summer in college I commuted to school in a strange number of heavy downpours, which really got me used to low-visibility driving.

It was a sad day when Delores eventually got totalled during a blizzard. I just slipped right off a snow-covered on ramp and into a sizable ditch. Soooo sad.

After that I drove my dads aged Ford Explorer Sport with no working a/c, heat or radio. Power locks didn't work either, the regular ones only intermittantly. After a while only the lock on the back hatch worked most of the time, so I had to climb from the trunk to the driver's seat. I also got really got at jumpstarting, since the battery tended to die at frequent but unpredictable intervals. That old tank (fondly known as 'The Exploder' for it's lemon-like qualities) was a goner when I got slammed by a drunk driver. It looked like a crushed soda can after that, but I somehow remained surprisingly un-squished inside. Not such a bar car after all, eh? After that, it was a while before I wanted to drive again, so I saved money and did way too much research on what my next car should be.

After (too) much deliberation, I decided that saftey features were the way to go, and the first car I bought all by myself is my current 2007 Honda Accord. I love it. All paid off is the way to be!

Enjoy the car, Jenn, and may you have many happy miles together!

[Kiki]

Listen Jenn-love, you're not lame. I got my license around my 21st birthday so... yea lol. My first car, Agatha, wasn't bad but she was an old girl being a 1988 Lebaron. That car was sweet and it had little to no mileage on it but it also broke down twice in the year that I had it. haha. My current car (a toyota corolla) is really not bad, i've had to replace a few things here and there but luckily most of it was minor. I've been lucky so far in not only having two fabulous used cars with low mileage and no major problems under the respective hoods

I hope everything is smooth sailing from now on with this car, because it is uber cute.