Cars
People who know me know that I don't have the best luck with cars and most of my most expensive mistakes have been because of them.

Back when I was younger and slightly more gullible than I am now I crashed my first car into a wall after hitting some black ice. I'd had it for about three months.

A couple of sheds later and I bought a car from a mate of someone I worked with. It was a D reg Ford Escort and the guy was selling because he was moving to the States for a year. Thing is, I didn't have the £600 he wanted 'for a quick sale' and approached the company I worked atfor a loan. I picked up the car and dropped it in for an MOT the following day as it was about to expire. The mechanic phoned me back and, in between trying to not to piss himself, told me that the whole chassis was fucked and that he was suprised I'd not managed to kill myself whilst driving it. Apparently, D reg Escorts were notorious for rotting easily. Horse, stable door, bolted?

The car was scrapped two days later.

A couple of years ago, I'd bought a Mondeo from a bloke off eBay for £1200. My brother, a mechanic, checked it over and told me that it was a good buy. I drove it for three happy months until I heard a tapping noise in the engine. Now I know nothing about cars but I knew this noise was to do with the oil running low.

So, the next day I drove to a car parts supplier and bought some more oil. Did I put some oil in there and then? No. Did I put some oil in later when I set off home from work? No. That night, a mile from home, the whole car shuddered to a halt. I got the RAC bloke out and he told me that the engine had seized and asked me if I'd put any oil in it? The oil was still in the boot. I eventually sold the Mondeo to a mechanic mate of my brother's for £100, who plopped a new engine in it and, as far as I know, it remains giving him happy motoring even now, some three years later.

So I got another car, a lovely Renault Laguna. A year later it failed the MOT big time and required £1200 work doing to it. Back to the scrappers.

I've had my current car (a Renault Megane) for nearly two years and, apart from the odd scratch, it's doing okay.
(Ghostlight, Thu 25 Oct 2007, 16:41, Reply)