Within the next 24 hours, mud season will be in full, glorious, sticky, ooky glop. The three feet of snow collected over the last six months is melting at a phenomenal rate, creating lakes the size of Lithuania all over the borough. As soon as some of that moisture soaks into the ground we'll be in the soup.
My truck, which has been grumbling all winter, is at the transmission shop. This means I had to rent a car. My self-employed status made it necessary for me to choose the cheapest car rental place in town: Rent-A-Wreck.
I have rented cars from Rent-A-Wreck before, but never have they provided me with a vehicle that more faithfully represents their name. Have you ever driven a Kia Sephia? How about one with 89,000 + miles on it? I hear their engines generally last about two years, maximum. I believe it.
It has about 2 1/2 inches clearance underneath, the front bumper is falling off, there are dents, and the seats look like someone peed on every single one. It smells like cigarettes ("NO SMOKING IN VEHICLE! $50 fine!" says the contract) and there are burns on the driver's seat. The glove box won't open at all, it appears to be jammed and broken shut. The right rear tire is bald.
When I go down my driveway, the bottom of the car scrapes the snow in the middle.
Driving home last night on my long country drive, I used the brights and decided that they covered just about as much of the road as the normal headlights on my Toyota truck. I also decided that if I hit a moose in this eggshell, I was dead meat.
The CHECK ENGINE light is on. The middle-eastern fellow I rented this from said, "Oh, it is okay. It means we haven't cleared the computer! Not to worry, Jean, it is okay! We check the car before it go out. " I pointed out that if the engine was fried that it would be my word against his and he kept assuring me that it was fine. If he hadn't used my name, I wouldn't be so worried. I checked the oil and coolant, both were fine, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this isn't an ruse to get me to buy him a new POS. (If you don't know what POS stands for, well, it's something that people usually say that begins, "Piece of —")
The automatic transmission shifts with a large jerk each time. If I hit a groove in the road I have to hang onto the steering wheel and slow way down in order not to drive off the road.
Oh, and of course, it's two-wheel drive during 4-wheel drive season. The KIA POS is going to lose the battle of the mud, no doubt about it. Let's hear from the mechanic today so that I can take this thing back ASAP.
Is there a patron saint of POS vehicles? Is/was he/she Korean? Where do I leave the offering of kimchee? I need all the help I can get!
