The beginning of the end

I've owned three cars in my life.  The first was a 1988 baby blue Jetta that I loved with all my heart.  It was covered in butterfly decals and Dave Matthews Band stickers.  I love it for the freedom it represented to a 17-year-old trapped in suburban/rural area with no public transportation and I loved it because it was me.  It was absolutely perfect.... until I got rear-ended by a truck on my way to school one morning.  We only had a few short months together, me and that car.  I still remember, with gut-wrenching clarity, watching her being pulled up onto the tow truck that would take her to her final resting place.   God, I loved that Jetta.   

I suffered no delusions that the Jetta could be fixed, so I set my mechanic father immediately upon the task of finding me a new chariot.  He quickly found me a bright red, boxy 1989 VW Fox.  It wasn't my baby blue Jetta, but it was still beautiful.  Still me.  And best of all, it cost less than the insurance settlement I received for my poor, crushed Jetta.  I spent three days practicing stalling it out with my dad before we made our first venture to school, lurching and sputtering all the way.  But we made it, that Fox and me.  I came to love that car like a pet, quirks and all.  There was always some blinker or light out.  Sometimes it wouldn't start, but it always performed perfectly the minute my dad would arrive to rescue me.  I drove that car hundreds of miles with absolutely no oil in it (no one told me you needed to put oil in a car!), and it still lasted me from my senior year of high school right through my junior year of college.  I sold it when I went abroad to Spain because I could no longer justify paying the New Jersey insurance premiums on a car I was only using during school breaks.  For years afterwards, my mom would spot it from time to time, being driven around the neighboring towns by its new owner.  She left all my stickers on the back.  I think they were happy together, that girl and my car.

I was car-less for my last year and a half of college, until finally I couldn't stand having to ride the erratically scheduled University shuttle to the grocery store anymore.  Once again, I tasked my father to find me a new car.  I authorized him to use my full life savings at the time, about $5,000.  It was more money than I'd spent on the previous two cars combined.  I told him I wanted another Volkswagen, preferably blue or red. Maybe another Jetta, or a cute Corrado an old Rabbit.  But most importantly, I wanted something that was me. 

I went home for a weekend in March to meet my new car.  My mom had told me I'd be pleasantly surprised; although it was already five years old and had 100,000 miles on it, it looked almost new.  It was a huge upgrade from my first Jetta and my Fox.  It was beautiful, my new black 1998 Jetta.  I loved it from first sight.

There's something about being a Volkswagen owner.  We like to joke that my car has a gremlin living inside the engine; he feeds on money and oil and chews up wires and lets the air out of tires.  But for all the quirky problems my car has, it's always worked.  Blinkers and brake lights go out, the airbag warning light is permanently illuminated.  One of the tires leaks air (although the shop has tested it and found no leaks), the am radio has never worked.  The only truly unbearable inconvenience is that the air conditioning doesn't work, and that can only be blamed on me... and the taxi that stopped short in front of me in the rain, forcing me to rear-end gently tap him and crack my radiator.  My dad told me right off the bat that it was fixable, if I felt like shelling out $1000 for a new radiator.  No way, I said immediately, no way I was putting $1000 into a car that only cost $5,000 to start with.  I've regretted that decision every summer, but I can't blame the car. 

Over the past year, the car has started to slide downhill.  First, it was the parking brake, which froze into the "on" position whenever it was cold out.  Then it was the battery.  Then the starter, which my dad nearly managed to fix for me until he realized he didn't have the tool to remove the steering column on the newer VWs.  For a few weeks, until I got around to taking the car to the shop, I used a flathead screwdriver to turn the starter, which hung from the steering column by a wire.  I still keep that green-handled screwdriver in my car.  It's just where it belongs. 

Then the battery died inexplicably.  Later, the radio connection fritzed out and drained the battery, requiring a jump start.  Then the radio stopped working altogether.  My dad fixed that by disconnecting and re-connecting the battery. 

I took my car in for its first ever preventative maintenance last week because I just knew something was wrong.  I know next to nothing about cars and how they work, but I know my car.  I know it like I know a pet, and something was just off.  For $300, the shop tested everything, replaced the air filter and the spark plugs and the oil, and I hoped that would be enough.  But when I pulled over next to the car wash on Friday to clean out the interior, I wasn't shocked when the car refused to start back up.  I knew it, I knew something was wrong.   It was almost a relief to have it the inevitable breakdown over with.  There's never exactly a convenient time to have your car break down, but this could have been far worse.  I wasn't in a rush, I was pulled off the road.  It wasn't pouring rain, I didn't have a trunk full of perishable groceries.   I had a book with me.  I knew this was coming.

I turned the key again, and then a third time.  Nothing.  I waited ten minutes and tried the ignition again.  Nothing.   I could have moaned about Murphy's law, since this happened the one week of the year when Joel is out of town, and the same week that my dad was on vacation.  But this is why I pay AAA $65 a year.  They came out and tried to jump the car.  The portable jump kit had no effect, and neither did a direct jump from the battery of AAA's Ford F350.  It must be the battery and something else, the AAA guy said, and I just nodded along as he called the tow truck, muttering about how he's never seen anything like this before.  I have, I thought.  I've seen this.  I knew this was coming.

Watching my car being pulled up onto the tow bed was still gut-wrenching.  I wanted to pat the old girl and tell her everything was going to be OK.  But three hours and another $350 later, we had a new starter installed and my car was back in business.  If this lasts me another year I'll be happy, I thought.   That's all I need: one more year. 

This morning the driver's door wouldn't unlock.  I pulled and I budged, but it would just not open.  I finally climbed over from the passenger side, hoping it would unstick itself by the time I got to the vet's office (to drop off what I suspect to be a roundworm, found on the carpet in a pile of cat-barf, OH MY GOD WHY IS THIS HAPPENING AGAIN), but no dice.  I think my poor car is trying to tell me something; I think she's trying to say it's time to let her go.  She's had a good run, this car, and I know that after 150,000 miles and 11 years I can't really be surprised that she's nearing the end of her days.  But I don't want a new car.  I like this one.   Just the way she is.

Comments

[heidikins]

Aw honey, I'm so sorry! My first car (Miss Daisy Mae, may she rest in peace) was a VW and I absolutely loved her. Poor little bug. I certainly hope good things happen for you in the car department!

xox

[RA]

Ohh... I am humming out taps for your fallen soldier. Do you name your cars for proper memorializing? My (not so dearly) departed Escort was simply "Little Car."

[NGS]

Awww...it almost makes me cry. The relationship between a girl and her car is so close. (My dad and I got into a screaming match when he traded in my beautiful Chevy S-10 because the repair bills were so high. But...it was truck.)

Good luck to you and your Jetta!!

[Liz]

Poor little Jetta.

I remember my first car - Franny the Ford Tempo. She died when a deer decided to commit suicide one late August night in 1999. Tragic.

[blaez]

It's hard to let go. No matter what it is: your car, a bed, a silly ole tv, furniture... it becomes a part of your family and it truly is heart wrenching.

I wish you the best of luck in finding a new car and I wish your Jetta a peaceful retirement.

[Mary]

I got a little teary eyed reading this! You write about your car the way someone would who just lost a pet or dear friend...which is exactly what a car is. (A dear friend, not a pet.) I remember having to let go the car I drove all through high school, a blue Jimmy named Dr. Hank McCoy. I need to find some tissues now.

[nancypearlwannabe]

Maybe if you buy your Jetta something pretty she will perk up a bit! No? Well, if you do end up buying a new(er) car, I hope you stick with the VW. I feel like VWs are very you.

[julie]

I've always wanted a VW anything.

My first and only car was a 1987 Delta 88 Olds in POWDER BLUE. My friends called her the '88. I loved her. I left her at home when I went to college and my mom still drove her.

Until 2007. When my mom turned down the corner of our block and she died. 20 years, less than 100,000 miles. She was awesome.

[Beauty of Argument]

That happened with my 1999 Pontiac Grand Am. Oh, how I loved that car. It saw me through my moves from Boston to South Florida, South Florida to North Carolina, and finally North Carolina back to DC two years ago.

The day it started making awful grinding noises and then one day, it just wouldn't turn back on. Sigh. My mom jokes that it died after I returned home finally, so I couldn't move anymore.