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I had a medium-sized freakout earlier this week when I mistakenly thought that I'd finally managed to push the car over the fine line of undriveability. While trying to convince the electric seat control to go forward so that I could touch the pedals (a hidden microphone in the car would have recorded an increasingly disgruntled monologue of "No. Not back! NOT BACK! FORWARD!"), I managed to get the seat stuck in the highest position, so that once I did get sufficiently close to the pedals my knee was jammed into the steering column, heel dangling above the floor, and there was about three inches of clearance between the edge of the seat and the dash. It might work for 5' 4" me, but would render the car useless for Pete.

I've posted about Pete's Town Car before, which keeps chugging towards the 200K mark with surprisingly good reliability and miles per gallon. (For other details, see, for example, the following mentions of the large bolts holding our front door together, the bungee qualities of the driver's seat, and the occasional appearance of elusive gasoline fumes.) Still, as a child I was taught to retain fierce fidelity towards one's beat-up vehicle; automotive divorce, or even serial car monogamy, was dishonorable and something to be avoided at all costs.

We recently elected not to pay $500 to replace the motor operating the driver's side window, which still whirs hopefully while remaining in a fixed position. It's not a deal-breaker to me -- without air conditioning, it's not going to make a huge difference in reducing the heat inside the car on a 90 degree day, and I rarely park in paid lots, go through drive-thrus, or use toll roads. What I tend to forget is that there are a lot of other non-deal-breakers that we have elected not to fix in favor of saving the money for a new car. Here's a list of quirks that I drew up in about ten minutes (there are undoubtedly more):

• radio (only works on maximum volume)
• tape deck (reputedly ate tapes (when the system worked))
• cupholders (none)
• ventilation system (only operates on maximum level, or off)
• broken air conditioning
• power locks (temperamental)
• locks themselves (broken off, or occasionally stop working)
• driver's-side window (doesn't work)
• inside panel of driver's door falls off occasionally (see "large bolts" mentioned above)
• windshield wipers torqued
• needs extra-strong fuses to power headlights and taillights
• front skirt removed (mechanics noticed it was rusting away when we had the car up on the lift, so we got to yank it off ourselves)
• driver's side door (needs 2-3 purposeful slams to close)
• ceiling fabric (falling off)
• Check Engine light (comes on when coasting downhill)
• seat adjustment (forward/back, up/down) capricious

... not to mention that it needs body work, and that a super-sized rear-wheel-drive sedan is just about the worst possible vehicle to have on snowy and icy winter roads. These problems have added up slowly, though, and there's been no one major mechanical problem severe enough to send us scurrying to the local Auto Mile. Besides, as I mentioned above, I've been taught that one should remain loyal to one's car, and indulge its occasional faults and temper tantrums for the sake of maintaining the relationship.

So now I'm curious -- while I managed to avert seat-position disaster by eventually coercing the seat to lower, what will be the final straw? Will the transmission blow out, or the engine block crack? Will the seat motor eventually just give up? Or will we one day run out of washer fluid and, instead of popping the hood, mutually throw up our hands and shout "that's it!"?

I think I would go crazy if this were my car... then again, I'm pretty picky (especially for someone who is the passenger more often than the driver).

I suspect that it will be something electrical like the dash lights fail so we can't drive at night and it would cost much dollars to fix.

When I finally gave up the old Plymouth, it was all about the money. The muffler was shot, we lost a hubcap, the a/c didn't work (we had to rubber band the knob over in order to keep it "off," and there was some other major deal that the shop wanted us to fix for $600-700. I ended up selling it to a high school student who had totaled her last 2 cars. Yup, 2. I didn't feel bad at all for getting $400 from her. Don't worry, we told her ALL of the problems, and she only wanted it until she could get a "real" car.
It was sort of sad losing my first car to someone who was probably going to run into a tree or something with it, but oh well.