Ode To My Car

Every time my car has to go in to the dealership for yet another problem, I always think about Adam Sandler's "Ode to my Car". While I don't use that many expletives in my day to day life, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel like using them when it comes to my vehicle.

As you can guess, it's back there again. This time it's my fan. It happened last weekend when I was at the bank depositing some of my casino floor earnings (woo hoo!). I came out of the bank, turned on my car, and... nothing. No air flow at all. I turned it on and off a couple times, tried adjusting things to see if it would come on... nothing.

Great.

It was a very cold drive home with no warm air in the vehicle. Thank god for heated seats.

So this morning I took it in for an early appointment at the dealership. I'm really hoping this is a warranty issue, I don't really want to be spending my little savings account on getting the fan fixed in what has been a problematic car.

I talked to my mom about the fact that I want to sell my car, but my parent's aren't comfortable with the idea of me being completely vehicleless when I live so far away from them (8 hours). It sounds like, all going well, I may actually end up borrowing one of their vehicles when I sell mine. Its a summer vehicle only, so I'm not sure how I'll deal with this come winter, but it gives me secondary transportation when I do put mine on the market. I'm very grateful for the fact that they would offer to lend me one of their vehicles, I definitely wasn't expecting it.

In the mean time I'm still quite frustrated at mine. *steaming*

Anyone else having car problems right now?

Edit: The dealership just called, the car had a fault in the blower motor. It's being replaced under warranty. I can stop holding my breath now, but it's still frustrating.

A Pain in the Gas

I've never been so happy to own a fuel sipping vehicle than I do right now looking at gas prices.

I'm even happier that, cold weather be damned, I started adjusting myself to using public transit months ago.

Apparently gas prices in Edmonton averaged $1.018/L as of February 22nd this year, which was the lowest out of 19 cities surveyed. The highest city surveyed was Vancouver, at $1.2430/L on average (my heart goes out to you guys). The country as a whole came in around $1.151/L

For you guys in the US, those I believe those prices translate to $3.853/gal, $4.705/gal and $4.357/gal respectively.

I know the prices are going up as a result of what's going on in the middle east, but you'll have to forgive me if I don't see it as a purely supply vs. demand issue causing this.

Conflict goes up - Prices go up

Conflict goes down -  Prices.... yeah.... about that....

I kind of wish it would warm up already so I could try riding my bike to work. 18km in little over an hour? That's doable. Just means I have to wake up early. That part may be a little less doable.

The guy I'm seeing drives a larger truck; it cost him about $90 a tank last week to fill his truck, and he goes through SEVERAL tanks a month. I try to keep mine under $20 every 2 weeks. Now that I remember what it costs to feed a truck, the recent price hikes mean a little more to me. Before, not so much.

I don't foresee the price of gas breaking us up, but the 40km between our respective homes sucks a little more now.

Have you guys noticed the price of fuel impacting your budgets lately? How are you dealing with it?

A Long Haul

Q: What is 1360km long, costs ~$80, and takes about 16 hours to complete?

A: Driving north to my parents house and back on snow covered roads for Christmas. Cheaper than flying, though I may take my time value into account once my finances are back under control. Back to blogging tomorrow :)