I love cars. And motorcycles. And pretty much anything with an engine or motor that’ll allow be to catch a half a thrill. But, this hobby… this interest… sure comes with a lot of pain.
The thing that sucks about pain is that it hurts. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. “Of course, it hurts. It’s pain.” But, what is pain? What is hurt?
In the above photo is my middle finger after being slammed between a sliding glass door and its door jam. This isn’t an automotive injury — this time. I wasn’t wrenching away on some heap in the garage or driveway to earn this badge of manliness, but it did get me thinking about the pain we grin and bear for our love of the automobile. I’ve collected a number of little injuries over the years while working on my own and others’ vehicles.
When I moved back from the U.S., I didn’t have much in the way of money. Over the previous year, I lived the highlife, but I did so paycheck-to-paycheck even though I was making nearly $100k a year in a state that doesn’t tax its citizens’ income. Before moving back to Canada, I sold my Bronco and many other larger-than-new-life things I could no longer afford and, upon my arrival home, I was car-less and in need of cheap wheels. My father took pity on me and bestowed upon me a well-used Suzuki Vitara.
The Suzuki was a basketcase. The driver’s seat belt didn’t really work. My father had affixed a clothespin to the belt because if it went into the retractor it wasn’t going to be coming out again. The clothespin was a stopper of sorts. The retractor failed because the spot where it is mounted, way down in the B-pillar, had rusted out and the resulting iron oxide particles had gummed up the works. Other than the seat belt, the air conditioning no longer worked, a couple of the windows wouldn’t roll down, and only two of four brake calipers were still doing the jobs they were designed to do. This all added up to a painful daily commute to my new job.
I needed to do something about those incredibly questionable brakes, so I spent the day on the garage floor wrenching, hammering, and eventually angle grinding the calipers free of the brackets. During this DIY dance of sorts, I pulled what I thought was a muscle in my back. To this day, my back hasn’t been the same.
Sometimes we make questionable financial decisions that inflict monetary pain or maybe we buy a vehicle that’s a bit more than our skills can muster back into shape. Or maybe we can muster it, but the path to success is riddled with landmines. It all hurts. It’s all pain, just in a different forms.
What’s the worst pain your car/truck/vehicle has inflicted on you? We all have our war stories. Let’s hear them, B&B.
The post QOTD: What’s the Worst “Pain” Inflicted on You by Your Car? appeared first on The Truth About Cars.
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