The last week and a half has been exhausting..

Just, before I get started with my semi-weekly bitchfest, I want to say "THANK YOU!" to Natalie over at http://www.myblogisboring.com/ for naming my blog one of her top 15 favorites. I don't know if she really follows that many blogs or not, but I love her blog and it made me squee a little bit to be included in her list. :)

Just to catch everyone up, things have been going fairly well for me lately. (I managed to pay up some old debts that had been sorely behind. I am still in the hole, but less than before and that is progress. So, YAY ME!) Tax season was good to me and I have managed to purchase myself a new computer monitor which I'd put off for a whole year even though the color was bad and the screen was blinking on my old one. Due to overpayment - accidental, I assure you - I recieved refunds from a couple of other places as well. With our fabulous refunded moneys, my husband and I decided it was time to purchase a new - used - vehicle for our family. Mostly because when he works, I am left without a vehicle and I personally like to always have two vehicles anyway in case one breaks down.

I did a lot of research, drove far and wide to big car lots, small car lots, visited my favorite used car salesman - yes, I really do still love you Lonnie, even though you tried to sneak one past me this year - and visited three nearby cities in my search. I looked at, inspected and passed by at least 300 cars. I opened the hoods and sniffed dipsticks on at least 100. Throughout all of this, I only liked 3 vehicles enough to drive them. But I only actually decided to drive two of them. All of this earned me a great big "You're too picky" from my husband, my mother in law and four different salesmen. Ultimately, I have to say, "Yes, I am". So what? I know what I want, I know what I like, I know what I have to spend, I know better than to even bother looking at the price tag, I know better than to tell a car salesman my REAL budget, and I am smart enough to do my research before I even drive the car because I don't want to fall in love with it if it isn't worth the asking price - even though I don't plan to pay the asking price.

Sadly, all of my shopping did not net the results I'd hoped for. I ended up buying a 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo from http://rsautoky.com/ for $2800 total (that is sale price + ttl). It was valued, in excellent condition, at around $3600-3800, depending on which car buying manual you consult. So, it seems like I got a fair enough deal. Except, I got halfway home (don't you love how used car buying stories always include the phrase "halfway home"?) and started hearing a noise like Rice Krispies under the hood. So, I stopped off at a reputable repair shop called Grissom's Auto Care at Outer Loop and Old Shep - they don't have a website for me to link to, I'm sorry. But they're AWESOME and I trust them more than any shop I've been to in a long time  - to have a word about this noise.

The lady who runs the desk had a drive round the block and she was unsure what the problem might be, so she handed the truck off to one of the repair specialists who took it round the block as well. After his trip, he got out a hydraulic jack, checked the undercarriage and come back with a diagnosis of a bad transfer case. The transfer case is the 4 wheel drive part of the transmission on this particular truck and sadly, Grissom's does not do 4 wheel drive work. They referred me to someone else who they said was trustworthy, but he wanted to keep my vehicle for "a couple of days to try a few things" and see what he could do. Now, Grissom's I trust, but this person is someone I do not know and, in my experience, it is NEVER a good sign when a mechanic has not even MET your vehicle and already wants to keep it for more than a day and fiddle with it. I opted to take it to a mechanic who is a friend of a friend.

The good thing about a bad transfer case is that, apparently, you can disconnect the whole damn thing and still drive your truck as a 2 wheel drive vehicle without damaging anything. The bad thing is, I sort of NEED the 4 wheel drive in order to make a trip to visit my daddy's stone (off road, across a creek and up a muddy hill to the cemetary). The ugly thing is that a new transfer case is $1200 - let's do some maths, shall we? I paid $2500 before TTL. Retail of $3600-3800, middle ground being $3700. SO, I bought the car for about $1200 under retail and the day I bought it, it needed a $1200 part. Is this a coincidence? Maybe. Take a lesson from me, folks. If you go and look at a 4x4 vehicle, do yourself a favor and TEST the 4 wheel drive before you sign anything, okiedokie? Because I promise you, the guys at the car lot only had this to say, "Well, we don't know a lot about the cars we sell here. We try to tell the customers everything we do know, but we just make sure we tell you up front that we don't know a lot about them". So, yes, they wash their hands of the thing, which they have every legal right to do, then they move on while I am left with a $1200 headache before any labor is considered. Oi.

The longer I stew and search for this part, the more pissed off I get. I have visited every parts website, junk yard, auto salvage and individual classified ad for fifteen states. These things are as much as $800 used. USED! For a little over $600, I can buy all the parts and rebuild the inside of the damn transfer case from the Jeep dealership, but then I have to pay for the labor on not only pulling and replacing but also on rebuilding it. I'm not sure if this is injustice or not, but it certainly hurts ALL of my happy places.