(no subject)
It's been a crazy month (almost 2). On June 25, a woman changed lanes into my car and crumpled the passenger side. She drove away before I could get her license but the insurance paid for everything except my deductible. However, I've been in a rental car for almost two weeks. The body shop had to order a new door for that side and that took a week to arrive, then I dropped the car off and picked up a rental. They gave me this giant white SUV (called a GMC Terrain) that it took me five minutes to figure out how to change gears on (a series of levers on the dashboard). Once we established who was driving, the car and I got along reasonably well, though it was so tall I had to climb in every day. One week later, I get a call saying my car is ready so I drop the rental off and hitch a ride down the street (literally ... less than a block) to the body shop--where I find that the air bag light has come on in my car (hint: it was NOT on when I dropped it off). They said they had to take the car to the Volkswagen dealership and verify that it was not on before I came to them, which meant I called the rental company and got the Terrain back. That was nearly another week ago and I finally have my car back. The passenger side looks good again and it's nice to be at the proper height while driving (and to have my Sirius XM back with U2-X Radio).
That's nothing compared to my roomie's car woes. One of his check lights came on so he stopped by a mechanic's shop, where he was told they'd need a couple of days to diagnose and fix the problem. Fortunately, his is still under warranty so he only had to pay his deductible as well, but it's been a nightmare. They kept finding more stuff wrong. Finally replaced the transmission--only to find that the one they ordered wouldn't shift into third gear! Ordered another one--and the warranty people informed him that he was only allowed a rental car for 7 days! He's been paying cash for a rental for the past week (well, I've been paying - he had to borrow the cash until they refund the rental fees he had to pay for the first rental car but he'll pay that back next week when they pay him). We finally have the right cars back again, but man, what an experience!
Holy cow, I swear cars just know when your money is tight!