The Money Pit

[TheEarl]

I had a horrible moment the other week, when I suddenly realised that it was about the time of the year when my road tax needed renewing. I ran down to Ollie (my car), looked at the windscreen and promptly discovered that I was four days behind my duty in servicing Mr Brown's loose change collection.

"No problem," I thought. "I've got another ten days before they start chasing me in earnest, so I'll gather together the requisite paperwork tomorrow, put it through immediately and have it all sorted."

I remembered shortly after this that you needed an up-to-date MOT in order to get taxed, so I searched through my papers to find the sheet. Unfortunately, it had ran out five days before the road tax did. Ollie was becoming steadily more illegal as time went on.

I therefore booked in my car for an early morning appointment today, to be fully MOT-ed and signified as fit for driving. Unfortunately, HM's road licensing laws decided to have a difference of opinion and failed him on a fairly long list of points, most of which relate to the giant dent in the front wing that was very kindly placed there last year by a prick in a Mini who couldn't be bothered to slow down to 30mph and discovered for himself the difference in stopping distances for rain and dry. Full marks to the qingwa cao de liumang for not realising that according to road traffic laws, I was technically in the wrong for sticking my nose out of a secondary road while a giant penis tried to pretend he was driving a F1 car, and thus not bothering me about the dent in his car, but the fucker deserves a punch in the face for smashing my side light (one fail), damaging the dip on my headlight (two fails), breaking the surround and rendering my headlight mounting unstable (three fails) and damaging the electronics that have left the other headlight with a sporadic incapability to turn on while dipped (four fails) and in full beam (five fails).

So, thanks to the actions of the penismobile and its wonderful driver, I am now left without a car until Thursday at the earliest and facing a £340 bill to bodge Ollie through his MOT. Added to this is the fact that my incomparable lack of organisation will lead me having to declare my car as "Off the road" until the MOT is completed and I can finally put through my car tax.

This? This right here? This is my unimpressed face.

The Earl

 

[matriarch]

My sympathies, sweets......mine is becoming a money pit as well....it's 10 years old, has over 160,000 miles on the clock, and something is always going wrong....but that said, the car has spent all of its 10 year life parked outside on the road, apart from a few months in a garage while I was sojourning in Arizona. She starts first time, every time, no matter how cold or damp the weather.....only had to change the battery once, and that was only 2 years ago....she's just getting old.

It really is time to change cars, but.............*sigh*

This is the model of my car.....same silver metallic finish, same 5-door hatchback, but on mine the wheels have hub caps, the front two of which are missing, so just have the black paint finish on the wheels.

http://www.trustvehicles.com/photos/silvervauxhallcorsaauto_3.jpg

But, despite the age, the wear and tear, when she's cleaned up and polished, she looks damn good, and still goes well, cruises happily at 80 on the motorways....not bad for a 1400cc engine.

And I still don't want to get rid of her, but on paper she's only worth around £750...so what's the point in trading her in...she's worth more to me on the road. Part of me says just run her until she can go no more...it's not worth getting rid of her.