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Have you ever owned a car with bad Karma?
Im on my 8th car since 1977.. I don’t like changing cars much.
Worked most of my life on shift work downtown (IT) so much Shit happened!
Let me tell about a car I called RHonda, my forth car bought brand new was a 1989 RED CiViC SI. This is her story.
It was to be a replacement after 2 Preludes which I thought at the time had bad Karma…
Well RHonda brought that to a new level.
I always thought it had fallen off the truck as it had alignment issues day 1.
2 weeks in still on the new ownership honeymoon I notice my passenger door trim bumper popped out, the door looked to have been kicked in 2 places.
A year in , car was stolen within 15 minutes of being parked, just enough time for me to go down the block to get my midnight coffee before starting my shift, sit down at my usual position overlooking the street most of my team would park on, my car was not there anymore. Police called me next day, they had arrested 4 dudes doing burnouts in the bad part of town. Got educated by the cops on how to hot start a car while im half asleep with the screwdriver they found in the car.
Car gets Rad #2: on the way home one afternoon traffic was slowing in front, noticed a pickup following & coming in hot without a driver to be seen, he was looking at addresses he had to deliver that were on the passenger floor.. I waited to brake hoping he would appear but after I did my poor SI became quite the sandwich in the carnage that followed. Insurance did not total it but it was just a bit less than half value. Bonus: the Audi I hit in front on the ricochet had an expired licence & no insurance he was not happy..
Accumulated as many parking tickets as I could: most of the time my shift ended at 8’o in the morning, We had to change sides or street at 8’o in the morning, My replacement did not always show up before 8 to make this seamless.
Towing is 90$ when they place no parking signs after you park overnight on stormy snow days.
I had an alarm installed since new, My car would call me from across the street every 2 weeks. One day it had alerted me it had gone off, found out my key lock on the passenger side had been punched in wile assisting my dinner date that night, had to learn how to remove the door card & replace the lock barrel.
One rainy day returned to discover someone needed my rear hatch wiper more than me.
RAD #3 Had to replace my rad again due to the poor quality replacement after only 2 years.
One nice winter day I got the brilliant idea to wash the car, washing out the engine compartment as there was some salt accumulation, it was just above freezing what could go wrong?
Woke up at 10 Pm to get ready for my over night shift, Temperature had dropped some…
At start-up was greeted by some metallic sound of interference valves, well they were definitely interfering… half the bent valves were replaced no hassle under warranty and the timing cover gasket as well.
I had moved in with my bro for a year and one very cold November I passed a week trying to figure out why my battery was weak but only at home … found out It was being used for boosting his car in the morning without being started… Lucky for him he makes good beer.
Replace Rad #4 you should not follow dump trucks carrying rocks.
Almost lost the drivers mirror to a Semi who wanted to be in my lane too.
Over the years the Main relay acquired the known contact issue in hot weather. The fix I had adopted was to open all the windows & go for a coffee or find a cool one. Never thought about replacing it.
RHonda had managed to reach over 400k Km, and the SIR was the next thing I had to get.
The 2000 SIR became my garage queen that year & Rhonda was pissed!
On my last year of ownership she decided to jettison the whole exhaust one morning at 5’O that got my attention. Figured I owed her one last present before I kicked her out of my life.
It was early spring so I brought her fancy summer wheels with the sticky Yoko’s to be put on while she was up on the lift. The Muffler experts were not very busy that day; RHonda was left alone in the middle bay. The parts guy shows up with his truck outside and I notice that they intended to get the parts in from that center door… I got up to watch the show that was surely to happen… you see RHonda had her hatch door open on the lift.
It took a few seconds for those experts to realise the garage door was pushing RHonda slowly along on the lift, I jumped with joy that RHonda was going to commit some hara-kiri right there in the shop. I was hoping she was going to jump! But the Expert on hand stopped the door from any further entertainment; I got that job done with a hefty discount… For some dark reason I really wanted to see the mess.
I sold the car to my neighbour’s “friend” He showed up with a good stash of cash at hand. I thought that car was out of my life.
He was a used car salesman what I would classify higher than a car flipper… He called me back in a few days to inform me I sold him a car with 1000+ Km less than indicated if anyone would ask & that I had quite a nice SIR in the driveway and would be too bad if it got messed up… Saw some shots on racing forums with Rhonda doing good at the local drag strip, she was recognisable wearing the unique mags I had found for her.
By the way my SIR got stolen while at work after 7 years during a big snow storm,
I was parked just across from the Cop shop and I thought I had figured out how to keep it.
And here I am 23 years later with another Red car.
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