My car… Normally, I don’t name cars… but I am naming this one.

My car is 1994 Mazda 626 with a V6 engine. My car is a pain the butt. It could be a really good car. COULD be. IF, you know, it didn’t break down every week. The problem is I got this car from an auction, and we knew it had some minor problems, but what we didn’t know is that the car apparently sat untouched for an undetermined length of a time. It was long enough that most of my hoses rotted. It seems random as to which ones did, and we don’t have the money to put it in a shop, so we’re fixing things as they pop up.

So, the last two months have kind of looked like this…

A. Brakes start squealing. Fix front brakes. Find out back brakes are completely locked up. Okay, so your front brakes do 80 percent of your braking. The back brakes can wait.

B. Drive car to work for a week. Everything seems fine. Then, you start losing  brake pressure. Get your dad up to take a look at it. A task your dad had to drive 110+ miles to do. Find out the brake mastercylinder is bad.

C. Fix the brake mastercylinder. Drive the car to work for a a week. You still have some issues with pressure, but its not as bad as it was. Go out to go on an errand one day, your brakelight is on. Look under your car. Find a massive puddle of brakefluid.

D. Get the car towed home. Get your dad to come up, again, to fix the car. You find out the brake lines are almost completely rotted through. Apparently when you fixed the mastercylinder, the back brake lines started getting fluid and because they were so decrepit, they ruptured.

E. Fix the brake lines. Car runs fine for about a week. You’re driving home from lunch one day and the car starts making a rattling sound. You don’t even realize its your car at first, though, because you have a motorcycle behind you. See smoke coming out of the tailpipe. Park the car. Pop the hood. See smoke (It was actually steam) under the hood. Investigate, see you are running on hot. Check the radiator… you are completely out of water. WTF?

F. Fill the radiator up. Limp the car home. Get your dad to come up AGAIN to look at it. Lower radiator hose has ruptured. Get your dad to fix it. He has trouble doing it, but you think he’s finally got it.  There’s no leaking.

G. Drive the car to work for a week. Take your daughter to the hospital. When you enter the parking garage, you see a thin trickle of water running from underneath your car, but when you look under, you don’t see it gushing. Limp it home. Park the car. Look under the car a little later. BIG wet spot. Call your dad to come up yet again to fix it.

H. Dad come up the next day. He spends 8 hours working on the car. Finally gets it fixed. Oh, by the way, what’s that sound? Sounds like your timing belt is having some issues. But, on the plus side, you did find out that  basically 5 out of your 6 sparkplugs weren’t connecting properly. So, replacing them was an easy quick fix.

I. See you next weekend, dad. When it, you know, breaks down again.

OH, and maybe we’ll eventually get around to fixing the idle sensor. The fan motor so that you’ll have heat in the winter.  Checking out the fuel pump.

Very, very frustrating…and to top it off… Its the buckeye mobile. As in, lower portion painted scarlet and the top portion painted silver. No, I didn’t have a choice in the paintjob. Yes, it sucks.

At this point I just keep telling myself… “As soon as we get all this stuff fixed from where the previous owner didn’t take care of it… it’ll be a good car.” Sometimes, that thought is the only thing that keeps me sane. I do like the car. I like how it drives.

Anyways…back to my car’s name. Dorothy. Dorothy once was a very good car, who went over the rainbow, had lots of good times… but then she got old. Old and cranky. Now, when Dorothy wants to, she works, but she desperately needs some work done to her. Reconstructive surgery and stuff.