I can't be the only person out there whose car is falling apart before her very eyes. Talk about car trouble, past or present. What was the worst car you ever owned?

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2001

Answers

I just dropped the muffler on my '79 T-bird. I don't know when I'll have the money to get it repaired. In the meanwhile I'm borrowing my brother's '79 Fairmont.

Worst car ever owned? An '83 Mazda RX-7. It was cool, very very cool, but it broke down all the time and was expensive as hell to get fixed.

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2001

Dude! I owned an early eighties Mazda RX-7 back in the day too. I loved that little rotary engined piece of crap. It was a little two seater rocket. I lost it to the junkyard six months after my little teenager feet twisted every last bit of juice out of it and the engine conked out. Trucks are the only cars I like now.

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2001

I'm still paying off my 97 Neon and it's back in Massachusetts (it'll be paid off next week though).

I replaced the head gasket in March of 99, which is an expensive procedure but I think was covered by the warranty. A year later the head gasket blew again, but this time it isn't covered because I've driven the car over a hundred thousand miles. The guy at the dealership just says that it's a "quirk" of the Neon that you need to replace the gasket more and more often as they get older. Isn't that cute? I wanted to rip his eyeballs out and feed them to Mike Supkin.

I couldn't sell the car... or I'd get less than what I still owed on it, and my credit is bad enough already without a reposession on there. The car couldn't pass inspection, and I couldn't afford to fix it. So I moved to Seattle and left it behind. Fun fun.

I'm not sure what I am going to do with it when I pay it off. Maybe sell it for a few hundred bucks as is, maybe try to fix it and bring it out here, who knows?

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2001

Beth, you might try replacing the flasher fuse thingie to fix the turn signals. This is easy, the only hard part is finding the fuse box (or whatever it is) and wedging yourself upside down under the dash to actually get to it. The owner's manual should help with the first part, tho, and should also have a list of which fuse goes with what function. In mine the flasher fuse was a (relatively) big blue round one that just gets yanked out and replaced. Easy.

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2001

Oh, we have the part to fix the turn signals. It just requires a sunny day when Jeremy has time to do it, because we don't have a garage and it somehow involves something somewhere under the car. Or something. I think he's going to fix it tomorrow.

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2001

Agh. Nor'Easter Emily that just farted and pooped a ton of snow in New England AND the little snow burst we had last night was enough to break my antenna. I'm mightily pissed.

Anyone know how much I can expect to pay to get it fixed? It snapped off right at the base. Grr.

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2001

I've had a 2000 Explorer for a bit over a year now. I've been pretty happy with it, except for two thing:

1) The firestone tires are forever losing air.

2) The lid to the center console was hinged at the back with a thin plastic hinge. It snapped off within a matter of days. This business of flimsy hinges seems to be a dangerous trend, many of the flip top cell phones are the same way. Haven't the designers ever heard of Archimedes?

Jim

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2001

I finally paid off my car today! woohoo!

-- Anonymous, March 15, 2001

Our '85 Tercel recently dropped the rear-view mirror. As in, I was driving along and suddenly the rear-view mirror fell off the ceiling and into the passenger seat. Now we have no rear-view mirror. It makes the morning commute a bit more hair-raising than it used to be.

And the starter is going dead. I have to turn the key in the ignition five or six times before it finally catches. This too can be quite hair-raising; for example, when I am sitting in the darkened parking lot at work at 8:30 on a Tuesday night.

I will not even mention the rust caused by the boyfriend's encounter with a metal pole, or the trim that is falling off the passenger side door, or the chips in the windshield, or the dead speaker, or the fact that the interior light doesn't work anymore, or the dead cigarette lighter, or the missing cover to the hatchback trunk. No, all of these things pale in comparison next to the damned rear-view mirror. Argh.

-- Anonymous, March 15, 2001

Jan: get thee to an auto parts store; they sell kits for reattaching your mirror. It's really just some glue and a scraper, I think, but it will include instructions for preparing the glass. (I'm assuming your mirror is glued to the glass, like mine. If it's the kind that attaches to the ceiling, then I don't know what to tell you.)

My mirror falls off every time someone bumps the car while they're trying to park behind me or in front of me. That seems to happen a lot.

Dave: congratulations!

-- Anonymous, March 15, 2001

'89 Honda Accord, 128K miles, in good condition but developing a few odd squeaks and groans.

On the way to pre-school from the kiddie seat in the back, my daughters says: "Daddy. This car is old. You need a new car."

Somebody has been talking behind Dad's back.

-- Anonymous, March 16, 2001