If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, then you remember the disaster of a time that I had getting my Honda Civic fixed a few years ago. That experience has me sworn off of buying a Honda ever again. It’s just not going to happen. So when the time came around that I needed to buy a brand new car, I knew that I wasn’t going to go to a Honda dealership that screwed me over a few years earlier. Actually, I wound up going to the Ford dealership that is literally across the street from that Honda dealership (so take that, idiots at Honda!).

You can read the link above to learn more about the financial aspect of me buying a new car. This entry is being written to describe the story of why I had to buy the new car in the first place. And it all started with paying Sears Auto Center way too much to do… nothing.

A whole group of technicians inspecting my old Honda Civic

The picture above was taken sometime in early February at the Sears Auto Center in Ocean Township, New Jersey. As you’ll notice, the technicians are all standing around trying to figure out what the problem is with the Civic. This picture was taken on one of the third or fourth visits I made to that place – in about as many days. As I recall, the Civic was driving very shaky for a few weeks, but that wasn’t something that I didn’t expect for a car that was entering its twelfth year of service. Look, these cars start to make funny noises after a while – it happens!

After getting totally dicked over by the local Honda dealership (again, see the link above), I decided to go to the local Sears Auto Center to see if they could help with the weird feeling that I was getting from the Civic. They figured out that there was some belt that could use replacing, but that it wasn’t really the primary problem with the weakness that I was feeling from the engine. I asked them to go ahead and replace the belt and then we’d see if it helped with the general lack of “umph!” that I was feeling from the car. So… the guys kept the car for a night and replaced the belt. I got the car back the next day and went about my merry way.

Until the car stopped right in the middle of when I was driving it. On the same day I picked it back up from the shop.

Now don’t get me wrong – the car didn’t fishtail out of control on the highway and leave me stuck fending for my life against on-coming traffic or anything like that at all. Nope. Instead, I was driving the car on one of the major highways in my area (I believe it was US Highway 195 heading towards Trenton) and the car just stopped delivering power to the powertrain. The way I described it to the folks at the repair shop when I brought the car back to them was that I would be driving along at 60, 70, or 80 miles per hour and then I’d go to hit the gas again and nothing would happen. The car would just begin gliding. My way of combating that glide was to pop the car into neutral and work my way over to the shoulder and ultimately the median. The odd thing, though, was that once I allowed the car five or six minutes of “off” time (complete with me cursing and being furious inside the car), it would start back up and the energy would go back to the powertrain and I could travel for a short while again.

Bizarre.

And that picture above is of the mechanics and technicians checking the engine to see what the problem could possibly be. Suffice to say, they couldn’t figure anything out and told me to go about my business with the car. The guy who manages that shop was a nice guy and said that I should bring the car back in the event that it randomly stopped again. So I thanked him and went about my way.

A day later I was getting the car towed from my home back to the Sears Auto Center. That’s right – the car stalled out again. And, without going into the boring details, the guys at Sears Auto Center couldn’t figure out what the problem was again. I managed to drive the car off of the lot and back to my place with no problems. Maybe, I thought, the problem was over and I could actually drive this car to work without any problems. The next day came and I began driving the car north on Route 18 towards my new office and – you guessed it – it randomly stopped working again. After pulling off onto the median and getting the car to start again, I drove it to one of my coworkers’ houses that was on the way to my office and he led me to a local garage where he took his cars to get fixed when they were broken down.

My coworker had been working with that mechanic for quite some time and had a great deal of faith in him. I explained to the mechanic what the problem was and he asked me to leave the car with him so he could inspect what was going on. In the mean time, my coworker took me to the local Enterprise Rent-a-Car and I rented a gigantic SUV until my Civic was back in full working order.

And here’s the most frustrating part of leaving the car with the mechanic – two days went by and he didn’t find any problems with the car. Like the guys at Sears, the mechanic said that everything worked well on the inside of the car and that he even test drove it around town and didn’t have any problems. At this point, I got the impression that these car people were beginning to think that I was nuts or something. Anyway, after dropping the rental car back at the Enterprise on a Friday morning, I was dropped off at the mechanic to pick up my car and begin the drive home.

Do you want to guess what happened next?

If you guessed that I began driving south on Route 18 and the car randomly stopped again, then you win! Correct! As I was sitting on the median of Route 18 (again) thinking about how totally f’ing inept these mechanics must be to not be able to figure out the problem, I began to realize that I needed a new car. Remarkably, the Civic was always uncomfortable, always too small for me, and I was never really happy driving the car. What the Civic was, though, was a free car with great gas mileage that fit into my financial preference of aggressive student loan repayments and my professional circumstances of having to drive hundreds of miles each week for work. As I’ve been engaged in this aggressive student loan repayment program, the Civic was the best option for me.

These were some of the many thoughts swimming through my head as I sat on the median and came to the realization that my next stop would have to be at a car dealership to start shopping.

The car dealership was my next stop. While I was driving the car home (the thing miraculously started again after five minutes of sitting on the median), I decided to stop at the local Ford dealership. I’m not going to get into the details of the 5+ hour negotiation that led me to purchase my new 2012 Ford Escape Limited Edition (the first brand new car that I ever purchased) or the fact that I spent over $1,000 getting the Civic “fixed” that week, but at least now you know the story of why I had to get a new car. In my world, when the car you’re driving breaks down six out of seven days in a week, you need to get a new vehicle. I couldn’t imagine driving on the Garden State Parkway for work and being over the Driscoll Bridge and having the car lose its “umph” like that – talk about a major, significant accident waiting to happen.

And that’s the story of why I needed to buy a new car.

That’s it. That’s the secret. Budgeting works.

Through the magic of budgeting you can achieve some pretty amazing financial goals… like paying off about $90 thousand of student loans over an intense, focused three year period. However, we all know that life is a fluid adventure and sometimes the tides change. And when the tides change, sometimes financial goals are forced to change along with them. And thus we have the meat of today’s entry…

I bought a brand new car yesterday!

Actually, I didn’t buy a brand new “car” yesterday; I bought a brand new SUV. It was a 2012 Ford Escape Limited Edition, to be exact. And although the picture above isn’t exactly the Escape that I bought, it is the closest thing that I can find online to the model and color of the Escape that I purchased. In fact, my new SUV looks very similar to the one in that picture.

And yes, there is a larger, longer story about why I needed to buy a new car. I won’t go into the details of that decision right now, but I definitely will tell you the story in an upcoming entry on the blog… so stay tuned!

Purchasing this Escape a pretty big event for me for three reasons. First, it’s the first brand new car that I’ve ever purchased. Second, it dramatically alters my strict budget. And third, there is a new level of certainty in what used to be a very expensive part of my financial life. Before I woke up this morning, I woke up every other morning of the 13+ years that I’ve been driving and had a bit of an apprehension about the car I was driving. Sure, that apprehension was much less pronounced when I lived at home with my parents and right after I purchased my 1999 Chevrolet Blazer, but for the majority of the time that I’ve been driving I’ve been driving a beat up old car that just made it between trips to the service station.

If you’ve never been in that type of position with your primary method of transportation, then take it from me – it sucks. There’s nothing that makes a driver of a beat up car’s stomach sink faster than driving along and hearing a weird noise out of nowhere. Whenever that happened to me, I didn’t get frustrated with the machine (because that’s just crazy), but I did get annoyed because I saw money just flying out the proverbial window.

But along with my new car, I made sure to get a 5 year/100,000 mile extended warranty that covers pretty much anything that could go wrong in the car. It also provides an incredible amount of “other” stuff that comes in handy like free towing, free roadside assistance, free gas fill-ups if you run out of gas, free rental cars when the Escape is being worked on, and so on and so on. I know most people say to stay away from these types of warranties, but I’ve had my cars breakdown too many times and been left between a rock and a hard place that I knew purchasing this extended coverage was the right thing to do.

Oh, and last week I became a member of AAA at the “Plus” membership level. I think I’m about as covered as I can be!

Like the picture above, this one is not a direct image of the inside of my Escape. Instead, it’s a standard picture of the interior of an Escape Limited Edition that I found online. This is pretty much what the inside of my SUV looks like – including the nice touchscreen display in the center. There are a lot of buttons and functions on that touchscreen – I have to sit down to figure them all out. One thing that I know for sure is that there are a lot more functions available with this Escape than are available with the Ford Fusion. And that’s not a knock on the Fusion, but when I sat down in both machines – I knew that I wanted the Escape.

And that was an odd realization, too. You see, when I was negotiating to buy a new car yesterday, I was negotiating with the salesman to buy a brand new Fusion. It wasn’t quite the color that I wanted and it wasn’t quite the model that I wanted, but the price was reasonable (just north of $20 thousand). However, as I sat there waiting for the salesman to come back from the owner of the dealership I realized that I was negotiating for the wrong car! So when the salesman came back I told him to forget about the Fusion and get me a price for the Escape.

After owning the car for about 24 hours, I’m glad I made that game time decision. It was absolutely the right thing to do.

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The reason that I wrote this entry, though, was to let my readers know that this purchase alters my student loan repayment plans. By sticking to an aggressive repayment plan, I hoped to have my student loans fully repaid by December 2012. However, now that I have this machine to pay for, that timetable changes. I owe a little bit less on the truck than I still owe on my student loans so it is an easier debt for me to get my mind around and conquer. Once I receive the final financing papers, set up my online payment account through the finance company, and make my first payment I’ll have a better idea of how much I have left to repay on the car. Suffice to say, it’ll be slightly over $25 thousand for sure.

I have no intention of stopping my student loan repayments (which I could do because of how much I’ve overpaid to date). Instead, I intend to readjust my budget and pay off both the student loan and the car in a reasonable, quick, efficient fashion. A good budget is able to change with the tide.

Again, I won’t go into the gory details of how I was left with no choice but to buy a new car. That brief story will be released on the blog in an upcoming entry. However, I’m glad that I purchased the car that I wanted and didn’t just “settle” for any car on the lot.

As you’ll see, the feed contains just random thoughts, complaints, and observations. I’m not solving world hunger here, folks – I’m just living my life!

On the topic of what is going on with this blog there’s nothing major to update everyone on, but here is the general rundown:

First, for some reason we’ve been receiving a large number of spammy comments. Now, I write “spammy” comments because these comments aren’t your typical “click here for drugs” robotic spam comments, but rather vitriolic hate speech that is actually written by a human being. It’s really some pretty vicious stuff that has no place on a personal blog. And I don’t know how many times I have to write this in the comments section, but this always has been and always will be a personal blog. In other words, what I say goes so if you write a comment that attacks another commenter or blatantly distorts the issues presented in the various updates, you can stick your comment up your ass. Now granted, in the last year we’ve only gotten about 6 or 7 really vitriolic, arrogant, hateful comments and all of those were moderated before they made it on to the site. However, if you plan on writing bullshit and hate in the comments section you might as well save yourself the time because it’s not getting posted, period. My personal blog, my dictatorial rules – very simple to understand.

Second, I have a lot of content written and ready to be posted to the blog, but I’m waiting for the right time. For example, I have my next student loan update written and ready to go for whenever my total amount outstanding drops again (which should be in about a month – more on that in a minute). Also, I’ve been working on some other projects that are taking up some time so I’ve only been writing for the blog in my spare time.

Third, I’ve been working really hard to cull and delete a ton of the tags on this blog. If you don’t know what a “tag” is, it’s the keywords that bloggers use to help their individual pages categorize themselves and rise up in the search engines. A few years ago I utilized a system that provided a whole host of tags for specific keywords and that has bogged down and crapped up the database for the blog. As an example, if I wrote something about my old Chevy Blazer, I would get the following tags added to the database: Chevy, Chevy Blazer, Blazer, Chevrolet, Chevrolet Blazer, Blazer SUV, SUV, Chevy SUV, etc. That’s totally unnecessary. My culling process is reducing all of that gunk to two tags: Chevrolet and Blazer. That’s it – nothing more is needed. Obviously, this is a long process since there are some 6 or 7 thousand of tags in the database that need to be reviewed and deleted. I’m going through them about 250 at a time and I hope to have the project completed by the end of the year.

And the final part of this part of the update is that I’m looking for ways to freshen up the design of the blog. If you’ve been eagle-eyed, then over the last few weeks you might have noticed random updates here and there in certain design features (the addition of the Twitter feed, the lengthening of the Facebook feed, the layout change for news from the other sites that I own, change in some of the external button links, etc). However, I’ve been thinking that it might be time for wholesale change – I just don’t know how far I want to take it. If you have any ideas on how to change the design, please feel free to add them to the comments section of this post (but don’t post hate or it won’t get to see the light of day!).

That’s it for the JerseySmarts.com Update. And before I end the web-based updates I thought I might add that one of the sites that I own through Usable Web Solutions, LLC has really exploded in the last month and a half. Hits to that website have tripled and it is growing into a very respected site. I’m proud of the team that works there and plan to continue providing them with as much support as possible to let the growth continue. As for the rest of my life…

Things have been very busy. Towards the end of January my company moved its offices from Trenton to New Brunswick. That’s about ten miles less of a drive each morning for me, but the same amount of time thanks to the Route 18 traffic (which sucks). However, I tried to bypass most of the heavy traffic by changing my work schedule from 9am-ish to 5pm-ish to 7:45am-ish to 4:00pm-ish. I’m getting up earlier and leaving my house about an hour and a half earlier, but I’m also getting home right at or slightly before 5:00pm, so that’s an hour and a half earlier than the Trenton commute. The change hasn’t been too bad, but when you shift your schedule to work (and live life) an hour and a half earlier, you experience a personal seismic shift.

On my end, I’m finding that I have less time to spend on the computer in the evening (not playing around on the computer, but working on computer-based, paid projects). Also, I find that I’m totally exhausted by about 3:00pm. I think this is happening because my body isn’t used to going to bed at 10:00pm so I wind up tossing and turning for about a half an hour (though I’m totally beat right now and expect to sleep like a log tonight). It’s a change and I’ll get used to it.

Also, we’re getting towards the end of the college basketball season and I’ve been busy attending the Monmouth University men’s basketball team home games. The Hawks have struggled a little bit this season, but they’re starting to show signs of strength heading into their last four games of the season. Oh, and unlike the last few years I don’t really have a ton of pictures to post from these home games. I’ve actually been sitting back and enjoying the games instead of waiting for the perfect camera shot. However, I have taken a small handful of pictures at the games (mostly of the scoreboard after the games are over) and I plan to post them in the next few weeks.

I’ve also been hit with a variety of big expenses in the last few weeks. First, I spent a good deal of money traveling to Washington, DC for a business trip last week (granted, these expenses will be reimbursed, but I have to wait for the reimbursement to arrive). Then, I had my car crap out on me and it cost over eleven hundred bucks to get the thing fixed. And on the same day that I paid to get the car fixed, I co-hosted a fundraiser/donor recognition event at one of the Monmouth home games (which wasn’t a huge expense, but still an irregular expense in my routine budget). While all of these expenses are manageable, they are all irregular costs in my planned budget and they all hit within the same three day period. So… I’m glad that tomorrow is pay day!

Between the big shift in my personal schedule and the time I’ve been spending at the Monmouth games, my health is more or less in a stalemate. I haven’t been to the gym in about three weeks because I can’t figure out this new schedule yet, but my weight hasn’t moved too much and my blood sugar is very stable. I’m glad about the blood sugar being stable because a shift in routine combined with a reduction in the amount of medication that I’m taking could have formed the perfect storm to throw my blood sugar out of whack. On the topic of health, I purchased the Rebel Fitness Guide from Nerd Fitness a few weeks ago and I just finished reading it. Any guy who writes fitness articles and quotes the Lord of the Rings, uses Legos as a graphic tool, and frequently references the video games that I grew up playing and other nerdy topics is alright with me! I expect to begin the Level 1 Rookie workout around the beginning of March so be on the lookout for updates on how I’m progressing with that workout program.

Other than what’s posted above I don’t have many more big updates to provide right now. One of the last originally-written posts that I wrote for the blog was about finding a new church to attend that is close to where I live. Well, I’m still going to church there on a weekly basis and I find it amazing that I used to think that I didn’t have the time to go to church. Absolutely amazing. The services last about 45 – 50 minutes and when you factor in driving there and driving home, I’m only out of the house for about an hour and five minutes each Sunday morning. Who can’t give an hour and five minutes to go to church each week?! In fact, I continue to find that I enjoy going to church to listen to the homilies and the readings and so on. It’s nice – makes you feel good after you leave and gives you guidance for the week.

I’ve also been reading a lot on the NOOK, in The Word Among Us daily meditations, and random articles – so I have a lot to update on the site when I get a moment to do so! Stay tuned and in the mean time, follow me on Twitter @JVince81!

October 1st: I bring my car in for a checkup and because the brake light is on. There’s also a loud noise coming from underneath the car that sounds like the exhaust is messed up. I stress to the nice girl that checks me in that I would like the technicians to take a look around the car while they’re inspecting to see what else needs to be fixed, if anything. She tells me – no worries, Honda has a multi-point inspection that they put each car through so whatever the problem is, they’ll find it.

I leave and get a phone call a little while later from Honda saying the brake light is on because the fluid needed to be topped off so they topped it off. They say the exhaust is making noise because the muffler needs to be replaced and that they’ll order the muffler now and call me when it comes in. Honda also gives my car a full transmission fluid flush or something like that (I don’t know). Oh, and my car passed that Honda multi-point inspection with flying colors. I pay $240+ and go about my business.

October 2nd: The brake light comes back on.

October 16th: Honda calls to tell me that the muffler has arrived and that I can drop the car off at any time to get the thing installed. I ask how long this process takes and the folks at Honda tell me it takes about an hour and a half. Great! I ask them if I can drop it off on Monday, October 18th in the morning and they say sure, but the guy won’t be around to do the install until 1:00pm so I tell them that I’ll see them at 1:00pm on Monday, October 18th.

October 18th, 1:00pm: As promised, I drop the car off at 1:00pm. In fact, I drop it off at 12:58pm, but that’s neither here nor there. As I’m waiting for the service clerk to process the fact that my car is dropped off, I notice a large computer screen hanging from the wall listing out the service appointments for the day. I’m watching the times and names of the customers flip by and I see my name listed at 1:20pm. Weird – my appointment was for 1:00pm. Oh well, who cares? As long as I get the car back within an hour and a half so I have ample time to prepare for a career panel that I’m speaking on at 5:00pm at the local university. When I drop the car off, I tell the folks at Honda that the brake light went back on right after I took the car back on October 1st. They say that they’ll look into it. The cost of the muffler replacement is about $350.

October 18th, 3:00pm: I’m hanging out at my place preparing for the panel later that night and waiting for the Honda call that says, “Hey Joe. Your car is ready to pick up – come on by and get it.” The Honda call that I get instead is, “Hey Joe. We looked into those brakes and it turns out that your brake lines are rusted through and that’s why the brake fluid is leaking. The car isn’t safe to drive. We can replace brake lines for you, but we probably wouldn’t be able to get you the car back until Wednesday. And it’ll cost an additional $700+.”

For a moment, three thoughts try to squeeze themselves into the forefront of my mind and ultimately out of my mouth. The first thought is, “Didn’t my brakes pass some Honda multi-point inspection just two weeks ago? Why wasn’t this picked up at that time?” The second thought is, “How hard would I have to throw this phone to actually break the glass in the windows in my bedroom?” The third thought is, “You clearly need to have this work done – the car isn’t safe to drive without it and you’ll only be without the Civic until Wednesday. Just do it and get it over with. Plus, you’re giving this car back to Mom after you’re done with it and you don’t want her driving an unsafe car.”

The third thought wins the momentary race from my mind to my mouth (you’re welcome, Mom!) and I tell the woman on the phone that I want the brake lines replaced. I ask her about a loaner car since I have that career panel to get to and a job that requires me to actually show up at the office each day (novel idea, huh?). She tells me that Honda doesn’t have loaner cars, but that they have an arrangement with the local rental car place and that she can have a rental car ready for me as soon as I come by. My roommate and I get into his Nissan (which works perfectly fine, by the way), head back to the Honda dealership, and I meet the rental car guy. Turns out the rental car will cost me $40 per day, but they take a $150 deposit from my credit card just in case it goes longer. Weird. The only thought that goes through my mind is, “Son of a bitch. Well, I guess it’s only $80 in total so I’ll deal with it.”

October 18th, 4:45pm: As I’m walking into the building where the career panel is being held, Honda calls again to tell me that whoever replaced the muffler last time (Meineke) used parts and pieces that didn’t actually fit the year and model of Civic that I was driving. Thus, I should have some tube somewhere underneath the car replaced so that the new muffler works as its supposed to work. The technician tells me that the alternative is to have the new muffler constantly banging off of the gas tank and have a clanging noise inside of my car. Since I’m crazy enough as it is without having the 2+ hours that I spend in the car each day joined by some clanging sound underneath the car, I tell the technician that I’d rather have that pipe fixed, how much does it cost, and what’s the estimated additional time to have it fixed. The technician says that they actually have the piece in stock, the additional price is about $250 or so, and that it won’t add any time to the repair. Works for me – I tell the guy to fix it up.

October 19th: While I’m at my office, Honda calls me since they promised to keep me updated throughout the repair process. The nice young woman on the phone tells me that they can’t get me the car back by tomorrow because they didn’t actually have both brake lines available in stock – they only had one. In fact, they can get me the car back on Saturday, which is when American Honda will be able to deliver the part.

Much like the day before, three thoughts make a mad dash from my mind to my mouth. The first thought is, “So the same people who did the awesome job on the multi-point inspection must have checked the shelf and reported that there were two brake lines available when, in fact, there was only one. What type of clowns do they have working over there? Why isn’t anyone actually doing their jobs? I mean I’m paying good money here, damn it! And now I have to pay another $200 or so for this ridiculous rental car?! Are you serious?!” The second thought it, “I know how supply lines work. These things are a pain in the ass and can take forever to deliver something as simple as a thimble to somewhere as close by as the room next door.” The third thought is, “I better close my office door because I’m about to blow up.”

As my third thought alludes to, the first thought wins the race to my mouth and as I shut the door to my office, I get a little loud with the girl on the phone. Some mixture of the following leaves my mouth in an ever increasing tone: “Why didn’t your guys check for the required parts yesterday?! Do you realize that it’s not another four days, it’s another $160 or so in rental car fees?! How can you NOT have a loaner program? You guys better be paying for the additional four days since I only rented this car under the auspices of having it for two days! Why should I have to pay more because you guys didn’t do your job?” And yes, I did use the word “auspices” while I was yelling into the phone. At the same time as my voice got loud, so did the girl on the other end – in fact, I expected her to get loud. Hey, it’s her job to protect the company she works for, right? I fully understand and it doesn’t bother me.

We agree that Honda will pick up two days worth of the cost of the rental since I was told that pieces were in stock when I rented the car. As I hang up the phone I think to myself, “I haven’t yelled at someone in a while. That was kind of fun.”

October 20th: My daily call from Honda comes in. This time around, it turns out that American Honda can’t deliver the part until next Monday morning – not this Saturday like the girl on the phone promised the day before. The girl also tells me that it wouldn’t have mattered if the part was delivered on Saturday because the guy who is doing this repair doesn’t work on Saturdays.

That’s right – you guessed it. A multitude of thoughts rush through my mind at this point. The first thought is, “If the guy doesn’t work on Saturdays, then why did you tell me that I’d get the car back on Saturday even if the part was delivered? What’s going on over there? Why am I being dicked around so much? Who’s in charge? I want to talk to a supervisor immediately. This is crap. Why am I being promised things that never seem to happen or – in this case – can’t possibly happen in the first place?!” The second thought is, “I hate you. I hate Honda. I hate everyone right now. Don’t call me again unless you’re telling me that my car is ready to be picked up, damn it.” The third thought is, “Damn it. Whatever. Just fix my car.”

As the third thought is racing towards my mouth and crossing the finish line, the girl on the phone cuts me off and says that she understands that I’ve been put at a disservice and that she’s going to look into paying for another two days of the rental car expenses. If she can’t get the additional two days of the rental car paid for, then she’s going to try to do something about reducing the labor costs. My better judgment immediately picks up the doublespeak going on here – she’s going to “look into” getting more rental car days paid and she’s going to “try” reducing the labor costs. I feel like telling this girl, “Believe it or not, I’m a highly educated guy with a ton of business experience – I know what those words mean.” They mean that this girl isn’t going to do a damn thing or, at the very most, she’ll ask a question to a supervisor and (of course) be told “no” and then stop at that answer. In other words, this girl has a job to do and that job doesn’t necessarily involve fiercely advocating on my behalf to a decision-maker at Honda. Just as I’m ready to let all of these thoughts out, the third thought from a few minutes ago finishes the race and I tell her that I appreciated that she was going to look into the additional days and that I’d wait for her call on Monday to pick up my car.

The same little voice that – just 24 hours ago – told me that I missed yelling at people tells me, “See? That’s why you should yell at people – it makes them look into the obviously legitimate answer (in this case, paying for more rental days) without you even having to ask.” My conscience, with its feelings hurt, tells the little voice to shut up.

October 21st: I realize that even though the Chevy Aveo which I’m renting is the absolute bottom of the line in terms of features, it’s not that bad of a little car to go zipping back and forth to work. When I say bottom of the line, I mean NOTHING on this car is automatic other than the transmission. Later that night, I start pricing out how much a brand new Chevy Aveo might cost me.

October 25th, 3:00pm: I’m at the office and, at this point, I actually like the Chevy Aveo. One of my coworkers and I were just having a conversation about how we like the Chevrolet brand because it’s pretty durable and provides a good value when Honda rings my phone. My coworkers are happy that Honda is calling because they feel for me on this situation with the dealership and everyone in the office agrees that I’m getting dicked around by Honda. No matter, Honda is calling me with the good news that my car is ready to pick up.

I pick up the phone and the girl that I’ve been working with is back. She tells me that she looked into having the dealership pay for a few extra days on the rental and the answer is no. I immediately motion to my coworker who happens to be standing in my doorway to get out and close the door behind her; it’s about to get loud in this office again. The girl on the phone does her typical spiel of talking loud and talking nonstop so I can’t get a word in edgewise. In the midst of her talk she says, “Unfortunately, American Honda didn’t deliver the part today and they won’t be able to get it here until Saturday.” At this point, I’m convinced the clouds covered the Sun because even our closest star would be blinded by how bright I’m about to light this girl up on the phone. The girl ends her talking points by saying that this is a rare circumstance and this usually never happens and that she apologizes that the dealership can’t pay for more than two of the rental days.

Now it’s my turn to talk and there are no thoughts racing to my head – I have this response down already without having a mental war with myself. My response goes something like: “I have no major problems with you guys and your shop. [In fact, I do.] I have a major problem with American Honda. Why are they telling me that the part will be delivered on Saturday, but actually that means Monday, but actually it’ll be the following Saturday? What’s going on over there? Why can’t they deliver a part when they say they’ll deliver the part? This is absolutely unacceptable.” The girl on the phone says that she understands and agrees, but that this is a rare occasion and that she’s sorry about what’s going on. With a notable increase in my tone, I ask her: “Who did you talk to about paying for the rental car days? The service shop manager? The manager at the dealership? Who?” She tells me that she spoke with both of these guys as well as the district manager (whatever that means) and American Honda and no one was able to provide additional days. Knowing exactly what I’m going to do here I respond with: “Good. Give me the number of the district manager’s boss. I want to talk to that person.” She is audibly startled and after a quick verbal stutter step says, “Oh. That would be American Honda. Hold on. I’ll get you the number.” I get put on hold for about two minutes during which the following thoughts start going through my mind:

• This is absolutely ridiculous.
• That’s another $200+ for this rental in addition to the $200+ that you’re already paying. We’re getting to a point where you can’t afford this excessive expense.
• Why does no one at Honda understand that each day this repair gets prolonged it costs me an additional $40? This is outrageous!
• Did she say the part will be delivered on Saturday? Didn’t she tell me last week that the guy who is repairing the car doesn’t work on Saturdays? Wait a minute… I’m getting bamboozled here again!
• Hold on – didn’t the muffler take two weeks to get delivered? Why didn’t I think of that last week when I dropped the car off? American Honda can’t deliver a part in under two weeks…
• I could probably drive the car without the new brake lines installed. I drove the car onto the Honda lot with the rusted through brake lines and the car drove fine. It’s just that damn brake light…
• Maybe I can find a way to just turn the brake light off?
• I should just pick up the car this afternoon. To Hell with it all. The car drives fine.
• But what if the brake lines are really in bad shape? I could get into an accident and nobody needs that crap. But what are the chances of that happening? Well, they might be good – who knows?
• What the hell is a brake line anyway? Let me get on Bing for a minute and search this thing out…
• You know what? That’s it – I’m picking the car up today and bringing it somewhere else. Wait a minute – one of the guys that I advise in the fraternity owns a car repair place – I’ll bring it there! Why didn’t I think of that in the first place?! Damn it!

The girl gets back on the phone and gives me the generic 800 number to American Honda. As she begins to tell me that the piece will be delivered on Saturday I cut her off and tell her not to worry about it because I’m picking up the car today. She says, “You want to come and get the car? It’s not safe to drive.” I say, “I drove it onto the lot and it drove fine. I’ll drive it off this afternoon.” She says that they’ll top off the brake fluid for me, but that I’ll have to sign some disclaimer since the car isn’t safe to drive and they alerted me to that fact. I tell her that it’s fine with me and I’ll see her at 6:30pm. She also gives me the quote on the final bill (about $610 or something like that), which would be a reasonable expense for the work that the shop performed up until this point – a muffler replacement and having some tube under the car being replaced. But when you factor in the hundreds I’m spending on this rental car…

When I hang up the phone, part of me is proud that I pulled my business from a company that clearly doesn’t want to play fair with its clients and that clearly doesn’t give a damn about this client. Another part of me, though, isn’t happy at the thought of driving a possibly unsafe car off of the Honda lot. I know what the next move is here…

October 25th, 3:10pm: I call my buddy with the repair shop and he thinks the entire story with Honda is a complete joke. Not only is it crazy that the part wasn’t in the shop at the time when I brought my car in, but the piece should be easily delivered in a short period of time – i.e. not two weeks later. My buddy does tell me, though, that the car is probably unsafe to drive and that I should get it fixed before taking it a long distance. I ask him to ask his father about the timing on getting the car fixed if I drop the car off later tonight. He’ll call me back.

October 25th, 3:15pm: Honda calls back and now one of the managers is one the phone instead of the girl that I’ve been dealing with throughout. The manager says that he’s reviewed my previous discussions with the young woman I was dealing with and he’s sorry that American Honda has been so goofy with delivering the brake lines. He reiterated that this was a rare event and that he’s sorry that it happened.

I tell the manager that it’s not the fact that the shop at the dealership isn’t delivering on their promises to me (although that’s not helping), but that for a week now my car has been sitting on their lot and – like most folks who are without their car – my life is somewhat put on hold until I get that car back. He understands and asks for another 24 hours to work with the folks at American Honda to try to put together an arrangement where they’ll pay for some more rental car days given the fact that they’re the ones causing the unnecessary delay. In exchange for giving him and his staff another 24 hours to work with American Honda, he’ll pay the rental expense for the additional day. I thank him for the offer and say that I accept the offer, but that I’m not happy with the way my business has been treated by American Honda and that I’ll be by tomorrow to pick the car up. He asks me to wait until they call tomorrow to allow them to work with American Honda on those extra days. I agree and the manager apologizes again for this outrageous delay.

October 25th, 3:25pm: My buddy calls me back and lets me know that his father doesn’t think it’s a good idea to drive the car, but if I could get the car to their shop tonight, I’ll definitely have it back by the end of the week if not mid-week. As my buddy goes into the details on how the brake lines can be fixed (about 80% of which I understand) a few thoughts go through my mind. First, I’m bringing my car to this guy’s shop from now on. Second, no one at Honda bothered to get into the details with me on what needed to be fixed with the brake lines. Third, how the Hell would I get my car down to his shop? I explain the conversation that I just had with the dealership and my buddy asks me to give him a call tomorrow when I know more.

October 25th, 3:30pm: While I was on the phone with Honda and the young man that I used to advise, I looked up what a brake line actually was and am almost sick to my stomach. Have you ever looked up a brake line? No? This is what it looks like:

That’s it! That’s what I’m waiting for the great folks at American Honda to deliver! Why couldn’t they drop those brake lines in a little box and send them off in a FedEx to the shop at the dealership?! FedEx will get it there overnight – guaranteed! Unreal. Absolutely unreal. The supply chain that is used by American Honda absolutely sucks and that company ought to be ashamed of itself. It’s not like I’m asking for a new transmission to be delivered or like I need a new steering column or something that doesn’t fit into a FedEx-sized box. Come on already!

October 25th, 3:35pm: I decide that this experience is too ridiculous and too full of completely outlandish and outrageous statements to not share it with my readers on JerseySmarts.com and I begin writing this entry. Once I began writing this blog entry I didn’t stop until it was 5:30pm – way past my time to leave the office. However, the angry little voice in my head appreciates the therapeutic power of writing and is now at ease, much to my conscience’s contentment. All of the information written from this point forward comes from a different writing session than everything written above.

October 25th, 5:50pm: Apparently, I’m really at ease from the writing because I find myself listening to some shitty dance music on one of these garbage terrestrial radio stations and actually dancing in the Chevy Aveo. If you don’t find the humor in this, then it must be because you don’t realize that at 350 pounds I’m about the same size as the Aveo. Somewhere in my subconscious the voice of wisdom says, “You clearly like driving this car – stop the work on the car at the Honda shop and go buy a brand new one of these. You can afford it – just do it.” And while the Nike-inspired voice of wisdom would seem to make perfect sense, my conscience reminds me that I’m engaged in an epic battle against the two headed monster that is my student loan debt and that I’m literally weeks away from destroying one of the heads on that monster. The voice of wisdom retires for the day.

October 26th, 2:00pm: Thankfully, I’ve recovered from that bizarre dancing episode and for some awful reason I have a headache which probably won’t go away any time soon since my Excedrin is at home. Note to self: don’t dance in the car any more – it’s not worth the headache. The Honda dealership makes their daily call to me and since I’m in my office I opt to close the door so that my yelling doesn’t bother my coworkers. That’s right – I know before I answer this phone call how I’m going to approach the discussion which is, namely, either American Honda pays for this absurd rental or I’m taking my car back this afternoon. Period.

The girl says hello on the phone and I return the greeting. Sorry folks, there aren’t a bunch of thoughts racing to get to my mouth this time because there are already words on the tip of my tongue: “I’ll be by after work to take my car back.” Before I have a chance to use this quick verbal barb, though, the young woman on the phone says that the manager talked to someone “above” and American Honda will pay for the three days on the rental that they already agreed to pay for as well as paying for every day of the rental starting with today up until the job is finished.

As you might expect, the “I’m taking my car back” jab punches backwards instead of forwards and for a split second I’m not sure how to respond. Internally, my mind is thankful that someone up the chain of command at American Honda understands that the company hasn’t done right by me as a good, paying customer. I respond with a thanks and a brief statement that goes something like, “This is good news, but when do you expect to have this piece in the shop and the car repaired?” The young woman tells me that the piece should be delivered by Friday (I thought it was Saturday?) and that hopefully it’ll be installed quickly. At this news, a tremor of “Go get ’em, cowboy!” builds up in me since yesterday it was Saturday and today it’s Friday and I have no reason to believe either day, but I did just get a free rental for the remainder of this repair so I keep it shut.

My conscience wins a roaring victory by silencing the tremor and I thank the young woman for her assistance and let her know that I’ll be by later that day to take some items out of my car that I need for work (EZ Pass, GPS, hands-free headset, etc).

October 27th, 12:00pm: The local car rental company charges me an additional $222. I call and ask what the problem is and they say that it has to do with me having the car for over a week at this point. The anger begins to build within my mind, but my conscience is having a wonderful day and no battle ensues.

October 29th, 4:00pm: I’m up in North Jersey celebrating my Mother’s birthday which was actually the day before. My Mom and I think that the Honda dealership will probably call me while I’m up at the family party for her birthday since she lives about an hour and a half from the dealership and there’s no way that I’d be able to pick up the car that night. Almost as though if someone had set this up ahead of time, the Honda dealership calls me and says…

Bad news – They need to do more work on the car that will require a new rear wheel cylinder to be purchased and installed. They also need to replace the the rear brake shoes and resurface the drums. Good news – They took the liberty of going down to the AutoZone to get an aftermarket rear wheel cylinder instead of having me wait a few more days for American Honda to deliver the part. Also, the brake shoes are already in the shop and they’re not going to charge me extra labor to get the job done. After asking how much this is going to cost (another $285), I tell them to go for it. Then I ask how long it will take to get this done and they say that it’ll be done today.

Later that night my family decides that since we all have various financial goals that we’re aggressively pursuing, we don’t think it would be wise to waste any money on useless Christmas gifts this year. We decide, instead, that we’ll do something as a family and I hear my wallet audibly applaud the decision.

October 30th, 10:00am: I gladly pick up my car, sadly drop off the Chevy Aveo, and angrily pay for the repair.

In total, here is what I spent on repairing the car and paying for the rental car:

Absolutely, without a doubt, 100% completely unacceptable. Completely unacceptable. In fact, the total cost of this repair is ridiculous. In all truth, the car rental place refunded me $210.40 (remember, American Honda and the dealership were paying for a few days of the rental) so that my final cost for this repair and rental was $2,079.83, but that doesn’t make it any less heinous that I was treated like nothing more than easy money for American Honda.

And that’s the story, folks. I’m not totally mad at the people working at the local Honda dealership (though to not have a loaner program when you have a lot full of unused cars is unacceptable), but I’m furious at American Honda. I think that this entry appropriately displays my aggravation and all of the reasons why I’ll never purchase a Honda. Sure, Honda might see me as a single customer in a sea of potential customers, but I hope that this entry changes at least one other person’s mind about purchasing a Honda. The truth is that American Honda doesn’t give a damn about you as a consumer. All they care about is you as potential income to them.

And that, in this economy and for this consumer, is absolutely unacceptable.

I’m the king of problems with cars. Over the last few weeks, my car has tended to rumble a little bit when I go to start it each morning. I figured that it was no big deal. Then the “check engine” light popped on a few days ago. I thought, “Oh great. Here comes a few thousand dollars of aggravation.” Frankly, I don’t need this type of shit from my automobiles. I get them serviced frequently and I never drive them into the ground. I digress…

I brought my car to the Pep Boys down the street and they said that it needed a larger servicing that involved the spark plugs and everything so I was fine with that. Something else needed to be replaced under the hood – not sure what. All in all, the cost estimate came to $780.

This is the problem with my f’ing finances. I manage to build up some extra funds that I can apply towards my ridiculous student loans or saving to buy a house and some bullshit occurrence happens. Either my car breaks down or I have to buy new glasses or whatever. This is crap!

So my car is now in the shop…

Well, to round out that story – my car wound up costing me something like $760 and it has run very smoothly ever since I got it back from the Pep Boys. They do a good job over there. I am, however, still hoping that nothing crazy happens with this car because I don’t really want to go out and buy a new one.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, last night’s deep freeze has rendered those snow covered roads to be ice covered. Great…

When you put all of this together with the fact that I’m now driving a Honda Civic instead of a Chevrolet Blazer, you can see why I’m more restrained about making the hour long trek across New Jersey from Tinton Falls to Trenton. Ain’t happening today.

And let’s be real – I definitely do not get paid enough to put my safety on the line to get to an office where my work is more “appreciated” than valued. Seriously. If I had a dollar for every time someone said thank you or that they appreciated my work, I’d double my salary! I don’t want to start down that path right now, though…

So I’ll be working from home again today while the folks in this development try to dislodge their heads from their asses and figure out how to make the main road drivable!

This indicates that if the Big Three go bust it is their bosses, insular and stuck in their ways, who should be held most responsible. Put simply, for too long they had built bad cars, which were inefficient, unreliable and unattractive and Americans did not want to buy them.

The man makes a point. Everyone knows that foreign cars are much more fuel efficient, definitely more reliable, and usually more stylish than their American counterparts. Let’s put it this way, Ford didn’t earn the nickname of “Found On Road Dead” out of nowhere.

A few years ago (2002) I purchased a 1999 Chevy Blazer. The price was around $15,000 – give or take a few hundred bucks. First of all, the price was way too high for a three year old automobile. Second, since I purchased this machine, I’ve probably put an additional $15,000 into it in repairs. And of those repairs, about half of that expense was to pay for labor!

But the thing is, I’m one of many drivers who have had a financially negative experience with the American automakers. On the flip side, though, I’ve been borrowing my Mother’s spare 2000 Honda Civic for a few months now and not only does it get 31 – 33 miles to the gallon where the Blazer got 18 miles to the gallon, but I’ve not had one problem with it. I drive a lot for my job and since I borrowed the Civic I’ve put about 5,000 miles on it – no problems. With the Blazer, though, traveling that much almost certainly meant that I needed to stop at the shop one weekend for minor repairs.

American made cars are poor quality, energy inefficient, and cost way too much to manufacture. Unless these core problems change, they’ll never reclaim their former dominance in the market.