I paid for my shiney green 2003 VW Beetle in cash in 2005. And I love my car. Really.
The problem is: it won’t pass smog. Isn’t that the craziest thing you’ve ever heard? I get 30 mpg and I can’t pass smog?! I have been driving with the check engine light on for almost a year. It is the engine coolant temp sensor, nothing to worry about. But it is a pain to fix it and get the computer clear and have the thing smogged and re-registered. Went to get the oil changed the other day, and the rack and pionion are leaking -that’s about a grand to fix. I casually asked why my car made creaking noises. They said I probably need struts -they’re about two grand.
All of this hassle and bad news and un-empathetic DMV employees got me thinking… Is driving a car worth it? Is having a reliable car REALLY freedom as I once thought as a trapped-at-home youth?
Or am I just a slave to my car in the end?
I’m tired of wasting all of my money on transportation! The car was around $16,000 after tax. Since then, I’ve paid about $1,500 a year in insurance. I’ve bought around a tank of gas a week for the last three years – somewhere between 150 and 200 tanks of gas ranging from $40 to $50 + per tank. Not to mention maintenance (that’s 10 to15 oil changes by now), new tires, and registration costs. I also got an insurance fine of $250 dollars because my insurance company at the time changed my address and I stopped getting bills. And parking tickets and parking passes at UNR? Puh-lease brotha.
I’ve spent approximately 40,000 on transportation costs in the last three years.
Tell me cars don’t suck. Even cute little beetles like mine.
