just say no thanks

Well Jovan and I have been given a car. His cousin offered it to us casually over Christmas dinner. He thought since we didn't have one, we might want his old car. He is no longer using it and, "it only needs a little work." Originally we were going to pay a couple hundred for it, but the family gave it to us for free which was very generous.

We discovered quickly that though there is freedom with having your own wheels, there is also a lot of freedom in not having a vehicle. I haven't owned a car since I left for Malawi in 2001. I have been using public transportation and riding my bicycle, which is fun, and miserable at times. So how does the car tie you down. Well, before we got the car we invested some money in transferring the title and getting the registration taken care of. Don't even get me started on how difficult it is to figure this system out. We had to wait a couple of weeks before we could make the trip to New Jersey to pick up the car. We knew it would need a new muffler. Big deal right? I mean we should invest a little money in it. After all, it's a free car.

We discovered within hours that one of the tires needed a new rim. We eventually discovered this was no easy task. We had to drive home on a donut. No biggie, we will just drive slow and avoid highways. Yeah right. We were about 40 minutes into the trip when the check engine light came on and smoke started to billow from the hood. We pulled over only to discover a huge hole in one of the hoses. Which hose you might ask? Well don't ask, cause I haven't the slightest clue, and neither does Jovan. Either way we did not want to drive any further until we knew. Someone at the filling station told us we just needed to cut the hose down and tie it off. Another suggestion, duct tape. Ha! We called Jovan's dad and he came to the rescue. Fixed the hose temporarily and his dad followed us all the way home to make sure we made it safely.

The next day after work we were going to the junk yard in search of a rim and tire. Smoke billowed out of the back side this time and the engine was doing some serious knocking. The check engine light then began blinking furiously at me. This made me nervous and I decided we should just drop the car off at the nearest mechanic and figure out what it needs. We told the guy to let us know what we would need to do to pass inspection. One days wait and we got the call. "If you want to use this car, it needs $1900 worth of repair work done on it." WTF! If we just want to get it to pass inspection, $900. Uh, we'll just take the car thanks.

Now what? I haven't a clue. We are clearly not going to spend $900 on this car. Did I mention it's a Daewoo Lanos. Ever heard of it? Me neither. Did I also mention that when I told the mechanic what kind of car we had he apologized to us? Yeah. Then he took our $60 bucks, and gave us a list of needed repairs. So, do we buy the rim and take it to another inspector. The inspection will cost another $60, so if it fails.. well, you get the picture.

So the real question is... Car ownership, is it worth it?

Disclaimer: I have to end this by saying I do not want to sound ungrateful. Giving someone a car is very generous, and I greatly appreciate that generosity.