We Made Love in My Chevy Van

[mandysee_mandydo]

And that's alright with me.

Actually we didn't, but I got it back from the garage today. Don't get this? You should have read the subject! And listened to more bad 70's music.

It drives much better now. The ball joints were fine, but the wheel bearings needed to be repacked. Also I needed a new sway bar bushing. The alignment was way off. So bad that when I told the guys it had been done only a few months ago they were in shock. Guess where I'm going on Monday. Yup. I'm demanding my money back from the garage that first did the alignment. They were supposed to check the front end while they were there doing the alignment. They told me nothing. And they couldn't have possibly done a proper alignment with bad bearings. Bastiches!

But my van is back and I'm happy. The garage gave me a few repairs to add to my growing shopping list (yay) including replacing some rusty brake lines and all the shocks. And all the leaks. Lots of them. They also confirmed my suspicion that the transmission is bad. And leaky. Some environmentally-conscious person I am. I may as well call my van the Exxon Valdez. Soon the leaks will be fixed. Fortunately a brand-spanking-new tranny for my van is only $400, but that's about how much I don't have to spend right now.

I went back through a bunch of my old Xanga posts and found I used the word really a lot. I overused it. It's sickening how much I've used it. I am going to have to make a marked effort to change this and improve my blogging skills by giving you a no-really guarantee. So if I use the word, give me lots of grief about it. Please.

I guess I'm plagued with "really" instead of "like," which isn't much better. I heard someone overusing like the other day and it (I almost typed that word just here) grated on my nerves. My realization of my own word-overuse made me feel humble and put in my place and understanding that I need to be more tolerant and take these moments as lessons of what I can do to better myself and lead by example.

Really. (Now I'm doing it on purpose :P)

Comments

[javagirle.livejournal.com]

I'm glad part of the van is fixed... My car I was talking about before... the Cadillac? Well, on my way up here from PA, the radiator fluid started leaking into the passenger side floor... That's bad I think... really. Any suggestions? Do you still think it's the heating core?

[srturtle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it still sounds like the heater core. I'd have it checked just to be sure, but that's what it sounds like to me. The way your heating system works is by grabbing the heat from the engine via the hot engine coolant. So your heater core serves a dual-purpose: provide heat and accelerate the cooling of your engine coolant. When the heater core fails, usually it starts spitting coolant through the vents and leaking coolant. I would definitely get that fixed.

Of course I say this but I'm having the same trouble (to a lesser extent) with my van. :P

[javagirle.livejournal.com]

Thanks...

I had Jen's father look at it today. He said because it's front wheel drive, the heating core is in a very difficult place to fix. He said it may cost for labor between $400 and 700... ugh... He looked at the rest of the car and said it's worth it to get this fixed because the car is in very good shape other than that. He knows quite a bit about cars...

I guess with the car being for free, it's ok to spend the $400 or so to fix this if the car is going to last a while... so what if I feel like a pimp in this big old car!