Finacial Woes

Close to a month ago, I came upon an idea to achieve some of my financial goals; sell my car which would eliminate my remaining car payments for the next 2 years and pocket the extra to pay off my credit card debt and get back to ground zero. Now, I am famous for coming up with crazy schemes that achieve short term goals but are not in my best interest in the long run. So I sat with this one for a couple weeks before I made any moves.

In recent months, my world has become extremely small and it is possible for me to walk or bike to almost anywhere I have to go. I work 8 blocks from home, the nearest Safeway is only an additional 3 blocks away. I toyed with the idea of going carless but knew that was where I had gone too far. So the next thought was to buy an old car to use for emergency trips. I quickly discovered that purchasing an old car would then nix the ability to pay off my credit card. Then, lo and behold, my ex-husband decided to buy a new car and asked me if I would like to take over ownership of his 137,000 mile Jetta. There was the answer!

So I put my car on Craigs List and waited to see what would happen. There were several responses and a few people came by to see it. On the 6th day of the 7 day ad I received a short e-mail that said, "please call ---------- if you're still interested in selling rav4." I figured what the heck. I called the number and the voice mail greeting was definitely British. I wasn't feeling very positive at this point and was already entertaining the notion of relisting the add at a reduced price since I would be making another payment the following Friday. But the Brit found his way from Pleasanton and took a short test drive. He said he was looking at a couple more cars and would need to get approval from his wife who was still in London.

As the week progressed the e-mails and text messages were flying in at an incredible speed. Somehow I held myself together and just took one day at a time to see where it all ended up. We were dealing with DMV issues as well as the transfer of money. The buyer wanted to be assured that the car was in good shape mechanically so I agreed to have a dealer inspection done. This is where my relationship began with the evil doers at Stevens Creek Toyota. I called them Tuesday morning to schedule an appointment for the inspection and they said, "Oh you don't need an appointment. You can just bring it in." So that's just what I did. When I got there and told them what I needed I was told that they couldn't possibly do it today because today was a semi holiday as it happened to be Caesar Chavez Day. So I made an appointment for Wednesday. I showed up Wednesday and told them I had an appointment which the man totally ignored and went through the entire process once again of writing down all the pertinent numbers in my car. We got inside the office and he said, "Oh I see you have done this already." No shit, Sherlock! So I went inside to get comfortable in the waiting room and set about to correct my pile of social studies papers. Shortly after I finished the stack I was given the news that I had a leaking water pump. I updated my buyer with the news and after another flurry of e-mails we decided that we would have it repaired here and plan to transfer money and the car on Saturday. I contacted SC Toyota and dropped off the car Thursday night without another thought about it. As the day progressed I sort of waited for word from the dealer to hear that the car was ready. That didn't happen. I finally called them before my 6th period class. My new friend Eddie said to me, "Did you get my voice mail?" Nope. He then proceeded to tell me that they could not replace the water pump because they were still waiting for the part to come in. I had one of those weird reactions when you laugh at inopportune times. I laughed and kind of shouted, "You're kidding!" I then proceeded to inform Eddie that I was selling my car tomorrow afternoon and I needed a guarantee that my car would be ready by noon. He, of course could not give me a guarantee but assured me that they would do everything in their power to have it ready between 10 and 12 on Saturday. At this point, my increase in heart rate reminded me of how much I hate, yes hate, ineptitude. Friday night passed and I noticed a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. This always happens when for some reason things are not going as planned. Somehow I just know. Saturday morning I received the answer. Eddie called at 9:30 with his deepest apologies and was willing to do almost anything for me knowing this would severely compromise the sale of my car. It turns out that there is a huge shortage of RAV4 water pumps nationwide. Headquarters was saying anywhere from 2-4 weeks to fill the back orders. Now here is the clincher. They had already taken my water pump out before they realized this problem. I have some difficulty understanding this plan of attack. Isn't that a little like deciding to make a cake before you see if there is any flour in the pantry? So the old water pump could not be put back because the seal has been broken; a new water pump is unavailable. What now? The buyer was very patient but understandably did not want to invest such a large amount of money into a car that was laying on pieces on the Toyota garage floor. The last word came Saturday at 3:30 that Toyota was hopeful they could get a water pump in a week but it could be 2 weeks. The buyer is going to go back to his search for a car. I will be relisting my car on Craigs list but right now have nothing to sell.

I am currently more irritated with human beings than I have been in a long time. But at the same time am deeply grateful that I have a car to drive. I would like very much for Toyota to make amends - this is the revengeful side of me speaking - but since the car is still under warranty until April 29th the repair will be free anyway. So in the end, I am just left with my bills and a good idea on how to pay them.