I have cut off my own testicles...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

…in a way.

Those of you who haunt GQ might remember my many threads asking how to fix yet another broken thing on my old 4Runner. 18-years old. Red. Rust spots. Reasonably faithful. Tough as nails. Loud and bouncy.

In the past year and a half or so, I’ve dropped about $1800 into keeping its mechanical parts… ummm… mechanicating together? There’s been new bearings and differential seals, replacement u-joints, header gaskets, alternators (twice), and (for luxury’s sake) a new radio.

Well, I’ve been planning a trip this winter to visit family and the limitations, comfort level, poor gas mileage and reliability of my jalopy has been weighing heavily on my mind. I’ve been peeking on websites for used cars.

Saturday, I went to a used car lot with the intent of just finding out possibilities. Not so much shopping for cars as shopping for ideas.

It didn’t call my name. It wasn’t love at first site. It was more like an aging, plain, former nun looked at me from under a streetlight at dusk and said, “What the hell, wanna do it?”

It’s a mini-van. A Dodge Grand Caravan. The vehicle used by Beelzebub to transport the minions around the upper levels of hell (the lower levels use Corvairs).

It’s white. Luxury appointments are limited to cruise control, a CD player, and air conditioning. Three row seating thanks to two stock bench seats.

I looks, to paraphrase Johnny, like a big white Tylenol.

Still, it’s a 2005 model with only 41,000 miles on it. The engine (3.3L v6) seems surprisingly peppy. I got a good, if not stellar, deal on it. They seemed to want the old girl off the lot. It’ll transport my three kids as they grow with additional room for my girlfriend and even her daughters if needed.

My girlfriend says it’s sexy. Says any man who cares for his children like this is sexy.

Me? I don’t think it’s sexy. I think it’s dull. The last stop on the I-used-to-be-cooler-than-this slide.

I could’ve gotten the three-row Explorer but this is… sigh… more practical.

Sigh.

2

HA ha! You are old!
Tries to block Belrix’s view of my station wagon

3

Jeeze, Belrix, I thought you were going to say you’d taken your ex back. Don’t SCARE me like that, Mister.

And congrats on the lame-mobile.

4

“…She thinks my minivan’s sexy…”

5

Exactly what I thought! :stuck_out_tongue:

I was ready to take you straight to the Pit. :smiley:

6

Did you get to keep the 4Runner?

7

Geez! Now you’re scaring me!

Odd. I dropped the kids last night at her (and her new boyfriend’s) place. The kids gushed at her about my new car. They think it’s great. See seemed to be trying her best to be indifferent but she did ask about it. Wanted to know if it was new.

I’ve noticed she’s developed a bad (that is to say fake) southern accent.

She has this chameleon thing that she does, the previous boyfriend was all country. She changed all her presets to country stations, started wearing a cowboy hat, and became a NASCAR fan. I really haven’t heard this one speak more than a dozen words but I’ll be he has a noticeable accent. I do know he moved here from Georgia. She’s obviously picking it up. Poorly.

8

Traded it. The offered $100. I got them to $2700. Still a bit less than book but not bad for a car with 263,000 miles on it. I know it’s all a game, fake trade value as reduced car price but the trade was necessary as a form of down-payment. (My credit rating suX0rs)

9

I work for a dodge dealer in parts if theres anything you think I can help you with pm me.

10

Bummer, dude. I figure I’ll be dead before my 1984 4Runner goes out (139,000 miles). But don’t go dissing Corvairs, man, they’re the poor man’s Porsche. Hell, you could have gotten a Corvair Greenbrier van, the original American mini-van. I’ll never forgive Ralph Nader for getting rid of them (not to mention skewing an important election).

11

I was fearing your physical damage Belrix, not just emotional, when I opened this thread.

That being said, I loathe this contention that caring for one’s family is somehow unmanly. You wanna know what unmanly is? Abandoning one’s kids after pressure from the 'rents because the wife is of the wrong ethnic group. This happened to a friend of mine: her husband up and left her and their son because his parents said she wasn’t ‘Portuguese’ enough, or some such crap. :rolleyes: It was heartbreaking. Fortunately, she saw that another friend cared and was capable of being there and supporting them, and they are now happily married.

Besides, the later Chrysler minivans are true classics, much better looking that most of the lumpy awkward inefficient style-abominations that go by the name of ‘SUV’.

Do not be ashamed, Belrix. Your girlfriend is right.

12

Actually you can answer why the left turn signal doesn’t self-cancel. The right is working fine. Vehicle seems fine past that (and all the missing cup-holders).

13

Oh - sorry - no, none of that.

Besides, it’d make no difference ('cept for the blood 'n all). I have hypogonadism and I’ve had a vasectomy before that. They’re truly just ornamental on me.

Double sigh…

14

You must now park on the other side of the parking lot.

15

Yikes. The non-canceling signal is the worst. Hopefully, the LED is bright enough to see or has a loud enough sound to hear, or else everyone will think you are a senile old coot. I completely replaced the steering wheel on my VW Ghia and the damn thing still won’t cancel (the bulb is not bright enough to see in the day and the signal makes no sound, at least relative to the 110dB of noise the car makes).

16

There was nothing at all unsafe about the Corvair. I’ve hated Ralph Nader ever since he caused them to be taken off the market; I also hate him for being an egotistical PITA.

17

Bite me. My 2 VunderCars are a minivan and a station wagon, and I live in an area where 3 year olds drive 4X4s.

18

Yeah well, women are odd like that. My g/f won’t kill earwigs because they’re “the only insect that mates for life” :dubious: Not car related, but you get the idea.

19

I hate to be the possible bearer of bad news here (and I think it’s wonderful, sexy and hot that you did this, btw–and I don’t even know you), but I had a Dodge Grand Caravan for some time. So did 3 of my friends. Mine was a 1996.

Every single one of them had problems with the left/right turn signal. For 2 of the 3 (including me) this problem “grew” in that the front windshield wipers would suddenly just go on and off. In my van, this spread --and not in a good way. Soon, my whole dashboard was dark, suddenly and spontaneously. My speedometer wouldn’t work etc. Very disconcerting when you’re on a highway. Upon occasion, turning the car off and then turning it back on brought it back up. Sometimes not.

We had this car at the dealer (a 5 star one!–the very place we bought it NEW; paid full price too. whoopee) I don’t know how many times. They said I must have knocked the windshield wipers (can I say here how much I hate how car people treat women? but I digress). They said it was short in the wiring. Nope. They said all kinds of things–including (and I am not making this up) that was I sure the car was doing this? (grrr). They replaced fuses, they replaced parts. It wa a PIA. Finally they said they had to send to Detroit for some damned thing (my husband says it was the dashboard computer, but I seem to remember it was a component of that computer). That did the trick, but by then, I hated that car like no other.

(sorry if I’m ruining your new car–sorry!)

I have a Volvo station wagon now (used). I love it.

20

If you really want to regain your manhood, you could hang these off the back of it.

Or maybe not.