Well, that sucked:
Went 30+ miles to the other side of the Metro area to check out a car that would've been a great builder: A white 2000 Chevy Cavalier sedan that had been beaten up by a spoiled brat. Her amps an "Banging System" were ripped out via the trunk, multiple dings and what not, and she sold her Custom Rims and tires for more drugs. Parents took the car away. They said the engine ran fine, and just needed a radiator.
This was SUPPOSED to be great, considering I myself have a 1997 white Cavalier Sedan in great condition, except my front end is bashed in and with new tires! The theory was that I'd swap out the banged up fenders and trunk lid, swap the crappy tires left over and put my new ones on it, repaint the car and we'd be good to go!
Not so much....
Turns out, they lied.
They said the car was relocated to a "storage facility" and I should meet the husband there. Makes sense... until you realize that in reality, you must substitute "storage facility" with "Fenced in dirt lot filled with junked 90's American compacts of various types from the Midwest in the middle of undeveloped westside desert farm fields North of Cardnials Stadium". The guy I thought sounded ok, but I was greeted with a smelly half-drunk troll in overalls with his scrawny Hells Angels wannabe buddy open-carrying a .454 Cassul revolver and their "Guard Dog" Rick Flair (Not. Kidding. Dog tags said so). I put Guard Dog in quotes because he was about as threatening as a cheese sandwich. Really adorable Rottweiler who licked me to death... actually and the one nice part about the trip. The last to greet me was a very large woman with a foot long Subway sandwich who came up to me first while I was in the car with a mouthfull asking "Who are you?". I told them my first name and that I was the gentleman who called about the Cavalier from Mesa.
She said "Oh! Wow...you sure talk funny." Great way to start things off. I proceeded to park the car and get out and her next response was "Wow. You kind of a scrawny guy... my boyfriend knocks the shit out of guys like you every weekend at the bar".
Now, for reference I'm 150lbs, 5'11" and while thin, I hardly look emaciated. I used to play sports and race amature GP in High School so I'm about as average as they come. So, this was NOT a good start to things. And to be fair, I am *not* stereotyping her when I say she was larger than my entire family put together! I prefer curvy, chubby girls...and BBW girls are very pretty too
have dated a few of them too and they were very lovely. But... she was...well, NOT lovely in any way, especially in personality! WAY beyond caring about herself or just about anything and was double fisting sandwiches! She was every stereotype you could think of for a bigger girl and was working as hard as she could to be rude, crass, insulting and bigger than SEVERAL plus sized girls put together! I told her "Well, I have been sick this past year.." and she quickly responded "Well you better git that shit straight because no real woman's gonna take you seriously when you're built like some swishy fag. Betcha you'll get better soon if you wanna get back to lookin' healthy".
Luckily, the short guy in overalls was her father and took charge of things and, while impossible to breathe around, was far nicer. He was a pretty sociable guy, as was his wife with whom I talked to on the phone. I could see why they were sick of their daughter's attitude. They said that she was with the "wrong crowd" and had got her insurance and license suspended, and they were getting rid of the car since she was just abusing this one as well. Turns out she wen through 3 of them before this one.
I was presented with a White sedan covered in grease, dirt and a cracked windscreen with one black fender. Bodywise it wasn't a total loss: The trunk was bashed up, but reparable. There were dents and dings, but all easy to fix back to new looking condition. There was a black replacement fender, but I could pull a white one off my current car and after a little polishing and waxing, I could even coax an even finish out of the entire car. The rear windscreen was covered in MMA fighter stickers and a "NO FEAR" sticker across the top windscreen, but not hard to remove.
The interior was a progression downwards in quality. The car smelled like a combination of an ashtray, a Denny's in South Phoenix and the bottom of a Monster Energy Drink cooler that hadn't been cleaned in 6 months with the smell of Budwiser permeating the overall aroma of the car. It hadn't been cleaned in years, with a layer of Newport cigarette boxes, fast food wrappers, local MMA fight events fliers and Doritos bags littering the floorboard. The dash had been hacked upon with a hatchet it seems to get whatever cheap kenwood "system" was in there, and the seats were flattened to near unusable status. The lumbar supports were busted out and there was fast food wrappers stuffed IN BETWEEN the cracks of the seat cushions!! The seat was SO bad I've seen better interiors from 340lb truckers and cab drivers who lived in their cars 18 hours a day.
The engine was NOT fine. In fact, the engine was actually a converted LNG powered motor that they swapped BACK to gasoline! And, it shook violently. The guy said "Oh, it's just missing a torque brace bolt on the bottom of the engine. Dunno why she took it out". First off, I imagine myself a very mechanically adept guy, and I know for a fact that there is no such thing as a "torque brace" on a Cavalier. There are motor mounts, and sure enough the bolt for the mount was gone. Why would a 19 year old tweaker remove one random bolt?? Easy: SHE DIDN'T! The poorly running engine shook the damned thing out!
Going back to the engine, it was idiling VERY low and took forever to start after a jump (He insisted on jumping it with the Saturn Vue I was driving...I politely told him 'no'. Not going to have my ECM fried by this trailer dweller). When it did the dash, covered in empty newport boxes and layers of dust, cigarette ash and god knows what else, lit up like a Christmas tree: TONS of engine warning codes, no odometer reading on the display, and the gas gauge was bouncing around like mad. Good running car my ass.
Oh, and the "working" a/c? Didn't. Compressor didn't click on.
The killer? I went to check the oil and the guy was quick to discount it before I even got to the dipstick.
"Oh, well it's been sitting for a year... so OBVIOUSLY it's going to need an oil change. I wouldn't worry about that son". He's calling me son... this is not going well for him....
Well, I pull the dipstick out with considerable effort, and his scrawny buddy makes a crack about me having to work out more and that the arts trade doesn't "Build Muscle". This was going from bad to worse.... But when I pulled out the dipstick, it looked like I had opened the lid to a bottle of rancid, frothy chocolate milk.
Yep. Blown head gasket. This means there was water and coolant in the oil from the engine overheating so bad, the gasket that seperates the cooling channels in the engine block with the cylinder itself broke, mixing all the coolant into the combustion chamber and the oil pan as well. This is about as common on crap cars in Arizona as Rust in the Midwest. Many people lie about it, but when you find it it's usually always a deal breaker. Most folks in Arizona claim that you can fix it with a "$20 part". But, you have to remove the entire top end off the motor to do so, and usually people with blown head gaskets don't realize what the problem is until they've driven the car for about 100 miles, causing so much heat and friction that the engine block cracks, making a rebuild of an engine impossible.
Luckily, he had another sucker who had just arrived lined up to look at the car. I pulled the "Well I gotta ask the wife" routine, dodged the question of what I did for a living and how much deposit could I put down, got in the car and drove away with the stereo very loud.
So, we're back to square one...with a busted Cavalier that somehow is in FAR better shape than the one I looked at today... and my car hit a Mustang at 65mph! It was that bad.
Went 30+ miles to the other side of the Metro area to check out a car that would've been a great builder: A white 2000 Chevy Cavalier sedan that had been beaten up by a spoiled brat. Her amps an "Banging System" were ripped out via the trunk, multiple dings and what not, and she sold her Custom Rims and tires for more drugs. Parents took the car away. They said the engine ran fine, and just needed a radiator.
This was SUPPOSED to be great, considering I myself have a 1997 white Cavalier Sedan in great condition, except my front end is bashed in and with new tires! The theory was that I'd swap out the banged up fenders and trunk lid, swap the crappy tires left over and put my new ones on it, repaint the car and we'd be good to go!
Not so much....
Turns out, they lied.
They said the car was relocated to a "storage facility" and I should meet the husband there. Makes sense... until you realize that in reality, you must substitute "storage facility" with "Fenced in dirt lot filled with junked 90's American compacts of various types from the Midwest in the middle of undeveloped westside desert farm fields North of Cardnials Stadium". The guy I thought sounded ok, but I was greeted with a smelly half-drunk troll in overalls with his scrawny Hells Angels wannabe buddy open-carrying a .454 Cassul revolver and their "Guard Dog" Rick Flair (Not. Kidding. Dog tags said so). I put Guard Dog in quotes because he was about as threatening as a cheese sandwich. Really adorable Rottweiler who licked me to death... actually and the one nice part about the trip. The last to greet me was a very large woman with a foot long Subway sandwich who came up to me first while I was in the car with a mouthfull asking "Who are you?". I told them my first name and that I was the gentleman who called about the Cavalier from Mesa.
She said "Oh! Wow...you sure talk funny." Great way to start things off. I proceeded to park the car and get out and her next response was "Wow. You kind of a scrawny guy... my boyfriend knocks the shit out of guys like you every weekend at the bar".
Now, for reference I'm 150lbs, 5'11" and while thin, I hardly look emaciated. I used to play sports and race amature GP in High School so I'm about as average as they come. So, this was NOT a good start to things. And to be fair, I am *not* stereotyping her when I say she was larger than my entire family put together! I prefer curvy, chubby girls...and BBW girls are very pretty too
have dated a few of them too and they were very lovely. But... she was...well, NOT lovely in any way, especially in personality! WAY beyond caring about herself or just about anything and was double fisting sandwiches! She was every stereotype you could think of for a bigger girl and was working as hard as she could to be rude, crass, insulting and bigger than SEVERAL plus sized girls put together! I told her "Well, I have been sick this past year.." and she quickly responded "Well you better git that shit straight because no real woman's gonna take you seriously when you're built like some swishy fag. Betcha you'll get better soon if you wanna get back to lookin' healthy".Luckily, the short guy in overalls was her father and took charge of things and, while impossible to breathe around, was far nicer. He was a pretty sociable guy, as was his wife with whom I talked to on the phone. I could see why they were sick of their daughter's attitude. They said that she was with the "wrong crowd" and had got her insurance and license suspended, and they were getting rid of the car since she was just abusing this one as well. Turns out she wen through 3 of them before this one.
I was presented with a White sedan covered in grease, dirt and a cracked windscreen with one black fender. Bodywise it wasn't a total loss: The trunk was bashed up, but reparable. There were dents and dings, but all easy to fix back to new looking condition. There was a black replacement fender, but I could pull a white one off my current car and after a little polishing and waxing, I could even coax an even finish out of the entire car. The rear windscreen was covered in MMA fighter stickers and a "NO FEAR" sticker across the top windscreen, but not hard to remove.
The interior was a progression downwards in quality. The car smelled like a combination of an ashtray, a Denny's in South Phoenix and the bottom of a Monster Energy Drink cooler that hadn't been cleaned in 6 months with the smell of Budwiser permeating the overall aroma of the car. It hadn't been cleaned in years, with a layer of Newport cigarette boxes, fast food wrappers, local MMA fight events fliers and Doritos bags littering the floorboard. The dash had been hacked upon with a hatchet it seems to get whatever cheap kenwood "system" was in there, and the seats were flattened to near unusable status. The lumbar supports were busted out and there was fast food wrappers stuffed IN BETWEEN the cracks of the seat cushions!! The seat was SO bad I've seen better interiors from 340lb truckers and cab drivers who lived in their cars 18 hours a day.
The engine was NOT fine. In fact, the engine was actually a converted LNG powered motor that they swapped BACK to gasoline! And, it shook violently. The guy said "Oh, it's just missing a torque brace bolt on the bottom of the engine. Dunno why she took it out". First off, I imagine myself a very mechanically adept guy, and I know for a fact that there is no such thing as a "torque brace" on a Cavalier. There are motor mounts, and sure enough the bolt for the mount was gone. Why would a 19 year old tweaker remove one random bolt?? Easy: SHE DIDN'T! The poorly running engine shook the damned thing out!
Going back to the engine, it was idiling VERY low and took forever to start after a jump (He insisted on jumping it with the Saturn Vue I was driving...I politely told him 'no'. Not going to have my ECM fried by this trailer dweller). When it did the dash, covered in empty newport boxes and layers of dust, cigarette ash and god knows what else, lit up like a Christmas tree: TONS of engine warning codes, no odometer reading on the display, and the gas gauge was bouncing around like mad. Good running car my ass.
Oh, and the "working" a/c? Didn't. Compressor didn't click on.
The killer? I went to check the oil and the guy was quick to discount it before I even got to the dipstick.
"Oh, well it's been sitting for a year... so OBVIOUSLY it's going to need an oil change. I wouldn't worry about that son". He's calling me son... this is not going well for him....
Well, I pull the dipstick out with considerable effort, and his scrawny buddy makes a crack about me having to work out more and that the arts trade doesn't "Build Muscle". This was going from bad to worse.... But when I pulled out the dipstick, it looked like I had opened the lid to a bottle of rancid, frothy chocolate milk.
Yep. Blown head gasket. This means there was water and coolant in the oil from the engine overheating so bad, the gasket that seperates the cooling channels in the engine block with the cylinder itself broke, mixing all the coolant into the combustion chamber and the oil pan as well. This is about as common on crap cars in Arizona as Rust in the Midwest. Many people lie about it, but when you find it it's usually always a deal breaker. Most folks in Arizona claim that you can fix it with a "$20 part". But, you have to remove the entire top end off the motor to do so, and usually people with blown head gaskets don't realize what the problem is until they've driven the car for about 100 miles, causing so much heat and friction that the engine block cracks, making a rebuild of an engine impossible.
Luckily, he had another sucker who had just arrived lined up to look at the car. I pulled the "Well I gotta ask the wife" routine, dodged the question of what I did for a living and how much deposit could I put down, got in the car and drove away with the stereo very loud.
So, we're back to square one...with a busted Cavalier that somehow is in FAR better shape than the one I looked at today... and my car hit a Mustang at 65mph! It was that bad.
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
flaker:
That's an AWESOME story! Actually, kudos to you for writing something that long that I actually enjoyed reading. And to think, I just dropped by to check out the scooter. Nice scooter(s) by the way....Sorry that your automotive dreams couldn't be fulfilled by a bunch of sketchy hillbillies in the middle of the Mesa badlands..better luck next time!
neothespian:
Actually it was over in Glendale about 35 miles on the OTHER side of the valley. Granted our version of that pit is called "Apache Junction" over here (which has neither Apaches or is a Junction of any two roads...discuss)