RIP Camry, or how I stopped worrying about the Toyota and learned to love the Escort

Abridged Version:

Camry Died

Got new Old Car.

Camry 1989-2008
"You were almost a Classic"

(2003 - 2008 for us)

OK dedicated blog readers, this one's for you.

I've had this gut feeling for quite some time now that the beloved Camry was about ready to give up the ghost. It's been a great little car, but like the last week of high school, I just couldn't bring myself to put much effort into it. It really started at the beginning of last summer when the AC died. This made for a pretty miserable drive whenever I had Weston in the car. It just got so hot so fast that I was always stressing about him, even with the windows down. This was back when Shannon was working, so I was picking him up every day at 5:30 from day care. Hopefully the child doesn't have any permanent damage from those car rides (Although, I must admit I enjoyed our rides home together... and on more than one occasion we may have made pit stops at Murray park or McDonalds). Anyway.... Despite the insanely cold and snowy winter, the lack of AC in my car remained in the back of my mind. Also, about twice a month, it just wouldn't start. I would just have to wait a few minutes and it would turn over, but it was an annoyance for sure. Since I couldn't ever re-create it, and it never left me stranded for more than 5 minutes, I never bothered to take this in. Over the past 6 months it had started running louder and louder. The breaks started squeaking again, I replaced both headlights within 3 months of each other and put seemingly endless amounts of oil into the belly of that steel beast.

One morning a few months ago I got in the car to go to my early morning church meetings and noticed a small crack had randomly appeared. I knew I had to get it repaired, or it would spread. Unfortunately, the next morning I got back in the car to go to work, only to find that the crack had more than doubled and was beyond fixable. So I was going to need a new windshield...great. Shortly thereafter, we actually had a nice day and I decided to drive with the windows and sunroof open. It was fabulous – until I went to shut said sunroof. The normal "seal of silence" that I would experience when closing the window while the car was still in motion failed to happen. The sunroof no longer properly sealed. This made it even louder in the car. Luckily, it seemed to still ward off rainfall, but I never drove it during a downpour, so I don't know how well it would hold up then. The final straw was the week after Davin's blessing. I could hear the tapping inside the engine...it was a death rattle.. I knew from previous experience that anything that far into the engine would be several hundred dollars to replace. So... I just let it go. Now this obviously wasn't the smartest thing to do... where I more pro-active about things like this, I would have stopped driving it immediately and tried to sell it in running shape... I would have been honest with any buyers... really it would have only raised the value of the car a few hundred (if that)...the damage had been done... the fuse lit... it was just a time bomb at this point...

So I started looking on Craigslist, KSL Classifieds, and Autotrader to see what was out there. In the spectrum of cars around $1500 there is quite a bit crap. I found a 94 ford escort for sale from a mechanic who just buys cars in that price range, fixes them up and re-sells them. I gave it a test drive and thought it ran as good as any $1500 car I had ever driven. The AC works great, the interior is clean, and it has power everything.

This was Thursday right after work - the same day Joy got into town. So I started thinking about it as I was home that evening. As soon as the kids were in bed, I decided that Shannon should test drive it. We stopped off at the bank to get a deposit to give the guy if Shannon gave her approval. On this second, longer test drive, I decided that this was about as good of a deal as I was going to get. We gave the guy our deposit and told him we could get the rest of the money to him by Monday (it was in our online savings account, which takes a few days to transfer back). He was a bit leery of this, but since we had the deposit, said he was ok with it.

When we got home I posted the Camry on all of the aforementioned websites (accept autotrader, which costs money) and set in motion the funds transfer.

The next day, I went to meet Shannon and Joy for lunch when the Camry died it's loud painful death on I-215. There was smoke and pieces of metal clattering around and the type of sounds that make mechanics cry. We have roadside assistance, so it only cost $15 to get it back home, but it did ruin our Café Rio plans.

So when we got home I updated my postings to now say that the Camry was dead. This qualified me to put it in the "Car Parts" section of the KSL classifieds. It sold that weekend, and was gone by Monday afternoon. Unfortunately, our money didn't come in until Tuesday. Luckily the guy didn't sell it out from under us (since he legally could have).

During this time between deciding to purchase the car and actually getting it, I went through what can only be described as male-nesting. I cleaned the garage, organized my tools, and installed the new remote kit for the garage door.

We got the car Tuesday evening. I had to get new rear brakes on it to pass safety and emissions, but it was under $200 for the whole deal, so that's not too bad.

The plan is to keep this thing running for at least 2.5 years until the Altima is paid off...

By then we will probably be wanting a larger car I am sure. So we'll see what happens.