forgotten_aria

Last week we drove the car to the repair place last week. they really wanted to have us drive it there, take photos, and drive it home and then back again when the parts were in, but since I didn't want to drive it more than I had to, I asked to leave it there.

So we phoned the to try to get an estimate on how long the parts would take to come in. They said they were "waiting on some paper work from the insurance company." We phone the insurance company. They had no such record of paperwork. I guess we'll phone them again tomorrow and try to confirm that they have everything they need.

I miss my car.

EDIT: they sent me a text today with a link to a "progress" page, so I at least feel they are working on it now. No time estimate yet.

EDIT2: the link they gave me lets me watch the estimate go up in real time, which isn't good. The deeper the damage the more likely the car will never be quite right.

We got our level 2 charger installed. The install went realtively well. They didn't quite put it where I wanted, but where it is fine. They put the wire out the side of the breaker box, which the box seems to be designed for and he turned the plug over when I asked him while he was bored waiting. The reason he was bored was they needed a special breaker and the nearest one was in Worceter, so they had to send one of their guys to drive the almost hour to worceter and back to get it.

The box hums a little when it's feeding the car and the cable gets a little warm, but I think, given the amount of power running through it, both are at an acceptable level.

It's really strange to have the car full charged over night after using level 1 for a month and a bit.

I installed the 3d printed cord holder that was very kindly printed for me. I'm not 100% sure I have it in the righ place, but things are working well enough for now. I'm going to put up one more wire clip just to make cord managmenet a little cleaner.

Mostly just trying to keep notes for myself. ( I don't expect this to be interesting for other people. )

The dealer phoned saying the car was in (yay) but that we couldn't pay for it until tomorrow because both finance guys were out and couldn't have it until Monday.

Our "instant offer" expires today, so we phoned the dealer we had planned to sell it and they said they could take it today, but not pay us, because the right people left early.

So we phoned the other dealer who said they would honor the deal. He "texted" his manager and I waiting in silence for a long time on the phone. They wouldn't honor the offer from the other dealer (which isn't what they said when I was in.) They offered $337 less.

So I was about to phone the first dealer to tell them we'd bring them the car, even if they couldn't pay (they offered to do that) when the second dealer phoned me on my cell phone while I was waiting for the operator to pick up, and said they would honor the first dealer's offer.

So we are schedule to go to the second dealer (Ira toyota of danvers) to sell the car at 4:30. Here's hoping no more bullshit.

EDIT: so we do all the paperwork to sell the c-max to ira and they tell us after everything is signed that they can't cut a check today. ARG!!! but the c-max is sold and hopefully we'll have a check Tuesday (via fexex, hopefully no extra fee for choosing that option.) I feel so lucky we aren't depending on that money for buying the new car.

My mom came over with her tiller and we made a driveway side garden in response to my neighbor taking out part of my lawn with his plow. This now means I need to plant things. I have the blackest of thumbs, so this likely wasn't a good idea, but hey, I'm committed now!

My neighbor (same one) gave me his concept 2 rower that he left outside (and used outside.) It is in remarkably good condition given it out in the elements, but a few of the parts (like the seat) must be replaced. Luckily concept 2 has very affordable parts. The one part I'm trying to decide on is the front wheels. The bolt sheered off one of the wheels and I'll have to drill it out. They don't even sell replacement axles. I can get a whole new front foot for $25, but I already have $47 of parts, and I'm not sure how much I should put into this "free" rower. It is the "standard" but the electronic box likely isn't working, so it's not as useful without that ($200 to replace that which is definitely over the budget.) I might feel better if I could sell the other two rowers that I bought for my home gym for anything close to what I paid for them, which seems unlikely. The resell value of exercise equipment is miserable.

We got blood work on Kaylee. The numbers are slightly improved, but she still won't eat the prescription food, so it looks like giving her fluids is just part of our lives now. We're going to try again to do it at home, because I think that will be better for her in the long run, but I'm not that hopeful. As much as she's a sweet cat, she doesn't not usually put two and two together and figure out that maybe what we're doing makes her feel better a few hours later and that if we do it, she doesn't have to go to the vet to have it done. At least the vet is super close.

Still no movement on the BOLT, but that's to be expected. I have been wondering if I should still be looking for a 1LT since even if I lost the deposit, it would be much much cheaper in the long term, since a more costly car also means more excise tax and sales tax.

I did my first roll in hoop. It was scary enough, I don't have a good memory of it.

It's coming up my 1 year anniversary in cyr and I still can't waltz. I'm so jealous of the videos of people learning to waltz in 1 week.

Boring post, mostly for my own records.

My closet light stopped working at the start of the week. I bought a replacement LED bulb (it was an old florescent tube. It stopped working again. I put the tube in G's closet, it came half on. Best theory is the ballast was going and had damaged the new bulb (we tried all the old bulbs in various locations to try to make sure of this. I decided I had to replace it. Turns out hard wired (as apposed to plug in) 3ft long fixtures are rare and all long fixtures are either kind of costly or dim. I bought a 2ft one, but when I got the old one off the wall, found out there were TWO giant holes where the wires from the switch were coming in right at the edge of the 3ft. So I had to decided what to do. I tried several positions with the 2ft and decided I had to get something else. I ended up with a 12" square, installing a junction box (I bought the wrong kind, so I had to cut off the tabs) in the holes (why wasn't this done in the first place?) and centering the light on the hole (which puts it off to one side, but the square looks fine like that.) I finished installing it Saturday. I try to avoid electrical work, but I felt comfortable doing this job.

This delayed me getting the wood for my birthday present to myself. So today I went and got it Sunday. First I was annoyed that the 16ft long posts were $3 cheaper than the 12ft, but they couldn't cut them and my car couldn't take them. Turns out that my car can take a 12ft 2x4, but not a 4x4 and not a whole stack of them. As I was trying to get them all in I ended up cracking my front windshield. I ended up ratchet strapping the door slightly ajar and taking the back roads home, window down to make sure I wasn't sucking exhaust.

Tomorrow I'll have to find a windshield repair place to come look at it, but since the crack is on the inside, I'm a little worried they won't know how to do it right.

I'm feeling like my project is a little cursed.

My car started to vibrate (the hood and the seats) at 60+ when the gas engine was loaded. I took it to firestone because they are close, they said "it's tires or rotors." I needed new tires soon, so I decided to believe them and get new tires. It was not the tires. The ford that is 20 minutes away from me (the closest one) doesn't do appointments and you need to drop off the car at 8am. There is a ford close to Shirley that claimed to take appointments. I made an appointment and then realized I never got a conformation. I phoned them.

"Those are just for quick things like oil changes. I don't know why it doesn't tell the customer that. We are booked weeks in advance, but I'll direct you to the quicklane guy and see if he can fit you in."

I HATE quicklane. At Stoneham ford you wait in an ACTUAL line IN your car. Once you are in the line, you can't get out (because it is a corral.) I've waited for hours. It is one of the stupidest ideas ever.

In this case I had someone to pick me up and I left the car with them. The good news, they test drove it, felt the issue and agreed it was bad. Bad news, it wasn't something easy like a spark plug. They left it for the main, non-quicklane service guy to hopefully look at it tomorrow. $108 just for the diagnostic, but I think my drive-train is still under warranty, so here's hoping this will be on their dime.

Luckily we are a two car family, so I can go about my life for an in determinate amount of time without my car.

I am super annoyed at Ford's bad service policy though.

EDIT:

ford: "it's the new tires"
me: "uh, no, I got the tires BECAUSE of the problem"
ford: "then it's your rims, we can't balance the tires"
me: (after a little discussion of the problem) "why does the vibration stop as soon as you let off the gas?"
ford: "good question, we'll go look at it some more."

EDIT:

Ford swapped the tires front to back and the problem still happened, but they are still asserting that firestone's tires are faulty, even if they are not the problem. They have no clue what the actual problem is, but most likely it will be covered by warranty, since they think it's either axle or transmission.

EDIT 20190301:
They determined yesterday it was the axle, ordered the part. It arrived this morning, but the technician who was working on the car is out sick today and they want him to complete the job. I agree, since this has been complicated enough. So no car until Monday at least. At least I have a back up car.

C-max started overheating again... ARG! Getting a new car was supposed to make things more reliable.

EDIT: they are trying many things, but can't get it fixed. Now they think they won't have it back to me before Friday.

I want to write this now while I'm still upset so hopefully I can read back on this and laugh.

I gravely miscalculated how much cargo space I'm giving up. Not just all the little cubbies that the m5 had (Where I had the fire extinguisher and the first aid kit) but the fact that the read door slopes inward, such that even thought the measurement to the back of the seat is almost the same, the drum space is greatly reduced.

Now, I don't know if my future contains a car packed with drums very often, but this realization started to make me cry. So yeah, regret already.

Oh yeah, I bought the c-max.