Friday, October 24, 2008

My History With Cars

Do you remember your first car? I think most everyone remembers the car they drove when they first got their driver's license. Mine was a 1983 Oldsmobile Firenza. It was actually my sister's car for awhile before she finally got a new car. So the Firenza was a hand-me-down for me, but I didn't mind. I didn't really go too far with it; basically back and forth to school. I think I might've used it for roughly a couple of years before I got a better, newer car of my own. But as I said, it got me to where I needed to go and I didn't really have a whole lot of trouble with it, either. That car was a rear-wheel drive vehicle, probably the only kind I'll ever get to drive in my life. The motor was only a four-cylinder, too; which made it relatively good on gas. I remember not needing to fill it up all that often. And if I only drove it locally, that meant I didn't use all that much gas. It wasn't the most fancy car; the interior and exterior were both a brown color and it was a fairly small car. But it was good for what I needed it for.

In 2000, I had just graduated from high school and was looking to go to college in the fall. The Firenza was a good car, but it was getting pretty old and becoming more and more unreliable. So my parents went out and got me a newer car. It was a 1990 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight with a V6 Engine and slightly bigger than the Firenza. There wasn't a whole lot of mileage on this vehicle and the exterior of the car was in immaculate condition, considering it was ten years old at the time. The interior and exterior were both red; a much more tolerable color than brown. Honestly, do you see many brown cars on the road these days? It was probably a good color for the time but in the late '90's, it sure seemed out of touch. Anyways, the Oldsmobile proved to be a very reliable car. I drove it a lot more than the Firenza and I didn't really have too many problems with the vehicle. Probably the most challenging thing about that particular car were the headlights and the automatic door locks. I can't tell you how many times I locked the keys in my car or left the headlights on and ended up draining the battery. There were many times where I didn't catch it in time and the battery of my car was dead. I think I only got lucky once where the car actually started up after leaving the lights on. The reason why I ended up leaving the headlights of the car on so frequently when I left the vehicle is because the warning sound that's supposed to ding when you left the lights on never sounded. And I was never able to keep it in my head that I needed to shut the lights off after leaving the car because there was always something on my mind. This only happened during daylight because at night, the headlights would automatically come on, much like cars do these days. But that was probably the most frustrating thing about that particular car and it was one thing I didn't miss once I got rid of it.

The Oldsmobile was needing some work so I brought it in to get serviced. My brother-in-law is a mechanic and he usually does the repairs on most of my family's vehicles. While doing an inspection of the car, he discoved a crack in the frame of the car. The car was essentially deemed "shot" because if I hit one bump in the road, the car could split apart. So we junked it and soon began searching for a different vehicle. Actually my search for a new car did not start right away because I used my dad's work car for about a year before I was in a dire need for a car of my own. His car, which was also an Oldsmobile, the transmission went bad during one of my drives around home. So I basically had no car at the time. Luckily that happened in the spring and around my parents home, even though the car was still drivable at about 25-30 mph.

So I spent about a week using my mom's car driving around college and going to and from work until my dad and I went car shopping. We looked at one car my brother-in-law recommended we look at, but it wasn't worth it for the price they were asking. So we went on to another dealer just a short drive down the road. That was where I found my current car, a 2001 Pontiac Grand Prix. When I first looked at it, I literally fell in love. It was painted a beautiful silver on the outside and everything inside was black. The dash looked so fancy with all of the lighting and everything looked so modern. It was really a step-up from what I was used to and the price wasn't all that bad. So after about three in a half years with the Grand Prix, I still have it and it continues to be a good car. I need to have new tires put on relatively soon and with over 100,000 miles on it, I'll need to look for something different sometime down the road. But I am in no rush to get something different as long as it continues to be reliable and trouble-free (knock on wood). Hey, it's the only car I have and without it, I've got no wheels. And that's my relatively-short vehicle history. Not too exciting, now is it? lol

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