Last Car Payment

If a person ever has had a nice car, they probably have had to make loan payments to a bank. I have been rolling over car loans on top of other car loans for the past 15 years, and now I am finally caught up. Making payments on junk can be discouraging, but when you buy a car that lasts it makes things go a lot smoother. That car was my 2002 Ford Explorer I bought in 2005. It had 50,000 miles when I got it and 66 months later it now has 165,000 and is mine. Everybody has got car stories, so I would like to tell you some.

I have an older sister, so all thru school I had to drive her hand me down clunkers. The first one was a Plymouth Horizon. This was a little car that was painted orange. All her friends called it the pumpkin. I had that untill I went to college, where I ended up getting her brown Chevy Citation. This car was something else, you couldn't touch the gas pedal when starting it, and you had one chance to crank it over or it wouldn't start. During that south dakota winter, I did plenty of pleading and praying for that thing to start. I did one year of college before enlisting in the Navy.

While in bootcamp, I found out that my first two years were going to be spent stationed in Japan. I was stunned when I heard that. At least now I don't have to worry about no crap colored, no starting car. I did my two years overseas and now I am going to be stationed in San Diego CA. I was able to save up 8,000 dollars which I planned to spend on my very own car/truck. So in november of 1995, I bought myself a 1992 Dodge Dakota 4X4 pickup. It was a red and silver extended cab with a V8 engine. Just what every 21 year old boy needs, a hot rod pickup. I used my 8,000 for a down payment. If I hadn't put that much money down, I wouldn't have been able to get a car loan. So I got a 48 month loan to pay the rest. I loved that truck.

It was the fall of 1998 that I started to hear a clunking sound coming from the dakota. I took it to the repair shop to have it looked at, where they found something wrong with the transfer case. While the mechanics were checking the pickup, I went walking around the used car lot. I kept thinking that instead of spending money on repairs I should trade it in. I found a 1993 Mercury Sable that I liked, and decided to trade for it. My dodge and the mercury would be a straight up trade, and I would just keep making payments on my first loan. I had the sable for a year before reverse went out in the transmission. I could still drive it, just not in reverse.

One of the biggest mistakes a person can make is to be in a used car lot with a broken down ride. And wouldn't you know, there I am the proud owner of 1997 Oldsmobile Acheiva with 50,000 miles. It was a blue four door with the Quad 4 engine. What I know now, what I knew then, I wouldn't have bought the thing. The Quad 4 engine had lots of power and got 30 miles to the gallon, but it was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. These motors would only last 100,000 miles before it would blow up. I had the water pump go out. The pump was only $55, but the labor would be $500. The car ran good for a year before more problems. During the winter everything would go, but when the weather was warmer it would stall out. The fuel pump for the motor is located in the gas tank. A bushing in the pump would stick and starve the engine of gas. The colder weather kept the gasoline in the tank cool and the pump would work, but going up hills would make the pump worker harder and without cold weather to keep the pump cool, it would quit running. This fix was just the opposite of the water pump, labor $80 and parts $265. It wasn't long after the fuel pump saga that the pin was pulled on the grenade /Quad 4/ and wasn't going to be for much longer. It was april of 2004 and I had to go into the bank. When I started my car, guess what I heard? "Clang Clang Clang" I had been around engines enough to know what that sound was. The connection rod had broken. Now I was told that this motor would only last 100,000 miles, but mine lasted 183,000 miles. I was glad about that, but I still owed 4,000 dollars on it. I could have got a new engine, but whats the use if it is just gonna blow up.

I had my Oldsmobile and Dodge loans rolled over together. So now I need another car. I just started a new job and my credit wasn't the best. The most I could get was $3,000. A 1995 Lincoln Continental caught my eye. It rode nice and looked sharp and it was only 2,500 dollars. I buy the car and now I am paying off two car loans. The car ran good before that thing blew up. Now what am I gonna due. Luckily my brother had a friend with the same car as me, who had just put a remanufactued engine in it. It ended up costing me a thousand dollars to buy the enigine and and have it put in my car. The lincoln ran fine for a while, before that engine began giving me problems. It was overheating and puking the coolant out into the overflow tank.

I babied that car for most of the summer of 05, when I decided I had enough. My favorite vehicle I ever had was my Dodge Dakota pickup. I have had cars for the past 7 years and now I want to buy a SUV. I checked out all the suv's available and the one I liked most was a 2002 Ford Explorer 4X4. I test drove a red one and a blue one at the ford dealership. I liked the red one, but somebody else was testing it. I liked that one better, but will I get the chance to buy it? To my releif, the woman driving the red explorer wanted the blue one. YES, is luck finally on my side. The hard part coming up, getting financing. I filled out all the paper work, and was approved. I was able to roll over 3 car loans into one nice long 66 month package. Making the payments went easily until the summer of 09 when I was between jobs, but I was able to escape that sitution, barely.

The only problem I ever had with the explorer was an alternator going out, which left me stranded on the road with a dead battery. Should I also include the time I slammed a curb while doing a u-turn in front of traffic as a problem? Nah, I consider that a thousand dollar screw up. One of the parts on the ford that can be expensive to fix is the transmission. Unlike my dodge dakota where the transmission and transfer case are separate, this is one unit. The transmission repair bill for the explorer can cost $6,000 and up. The transmission fluid has to be changed every 30,000 miles and I always made sure of that. These Ford Explorers are not meant for heavy towing, and I never pulled a trailer with it. If you do those two things the transmission should last. I could have fixed my dakota for $1,000 or less. You live and learn.

I got the title from the bank for MY Ford Explorer on Jan 29th. You know what that means? Either many problem free years or the pin has been pulled and this beast will explode. I could have saved a lot of trouble if I had only fixed that dog gone Dodge Dakota. But what fun is that?