Smurf sold

[helen99]

Wellp, I've sold Smurf. It was very quick, and quite unexpected. Last week, a person at work told me that he had a 2-hour commute every morning from Baltimore using Amtrak and Metro and Ride-ons. I felt sorry for him since winter is coming up. Not that I thought this was a great solution, but I mentioned that I had a 19-year-old Chevy that was dormant, and which would decay and die if someone didn't start driving it soon. To my total surprise, he expressed interest. I guess any car is better than no car at all. I proceeded to try to dissuade him by telling him everything that had gone wrong with Smurf since its last visit to the vet's office auto shop, namely:

1. Something is wrong with the distributor (or some other unknown part) that causes it to stall out all the time when stopping/starting.
   
2. The steering wheel mechanism that locks it into different positions for individual driving comfort is broken. Thus, the steering wheel is permanently in the lowest possible position, and is not locked in place. The actual steering is steady as long as you don't lift up on the wheel, so it's driveable but would fail inspection.
   
3. Brake lights need to be checked - I didn't see them turn on.
   
4. One of the springs in the driver's seat is broken, and it has eaten one of my pairs of pants and about 5 of rialian's. (I guess it likes his better...)
   
5. The paint job was shot and it was rusted in many places. I removed the rust, partially sanded it, and rialian spray painted it with bright blue Rust-Oleum (hence the name Smurf) to retard the rust. This stop-gap procedure seems to have worked, but it sorely needs a real paint job.
   
6. It needs a little bodywork - there are two serious dents and a few lesser ones.
   
7. It needs a new A/C. The current A/C doesn't hold a charge and all the hoses have been changed. Furthermore, it takes the old kind of freon that they don't use anymore. So... New A/C.
   
8. It probably needs all the fluids flushed and changed, since it was sitting around for months. I was happily surprised that it started at all. I thought I remembered trying it and it was dead. Apparently not...
   
9. It needs all its belts and hoses checked and possibly replaced.
   
10. Needs to be thoroughly checked to make sure it's not a structural hazard.
    
11. Anything else I don't know about that cars get from sitting around with nobody driving them.

He listened to all of the above, and then said that he still wanted it, and would like to try to restore it. He offered $300, and I agreed.

Sold. Smurf gets a new lease on life. Somehow. Not sure how. This morning the guy metroed out from Baltimore and met me at my place, whereupon I signed over the title to him, and he drove Smurf to a place in Poolesville where he and a friend are going to work on it today. Hopefully they'll be able to get it in good enough shape for him to actually get tags for it and start driving it on Monday, but if not, then a week or so max. I followed him up to the lot in Lyra. At the lot we removed the tags and I said goodbye. Dude must have thought it was a little odd, as there I was, talking away to this car - "Good bye old buddy. This isn't good bye, this is fare thee well. This is going to be great for you." Dude chimed in at that point and said, "He's just going to the doctor's!" I ended by saying that if he ever intended to junk it, to let me know. He said he wasn't going to junk it. He was going to restore it.

So... I haven't driven that car (except to the shop) since I bought Lyra, but it's always been out front, waiting patiently. A couple of times we used it when cars were in the shop, but eventually we stopped that in favor of just carpooling on those days - no A/C is kind of rough in August... aekiy had used it for about a year but then he bought a newer car too and Smurf lay rusting. Still, it was hard to let it go.

Good luck to you, Smurf-Ra the Immortal. May this be the beginning of a long and prosperous journey for you...