12-12-12 Spent 12 hours on Car

The weirdest thing happened this past week. My dad called and told me he found a car for Princess 2 now that she is home from her mission. My mouth dropped open when he told me it was a Suzuki Esteem. 

Last year this exact week, I bought Princess one a car. A Suzuki Esteem. I am not sure what the significance of that is, but it is weird, you must admit. The weirder part still is that I drive a Suzuki Esteem. 

I hadn't looked at all for a car for Princess one thinking she could drive the other car we have and Princess three was driving our suburban. That was taking it's toll on gas and Princess one was driving lots of miles for work and putting lots of stress on our older little car. So, I was going to the bank one day and saw someone looking at the Esteem with a "For Sale" sign in the window. I called and he wanted $1500. 

I took it for a drive and I think the mother must have locked her four kids in the car often because anything that could be broken or missing in that car, was. Also, the back seat belts were stretched and wouldn't retract due to being on car seats. I was able to talk the man down to $1300 and he threw in an oil change. After getting new tires, an alignment and going to the junk yard to find all the replacement parts that were pulled off and missing, she was into it for about $1,800 after registration and taxes. My brother-in-law who is a car whiz, fixed the seat belts in the back. She's been driving it happily for a year with no problems.

Flash forward to this year. I call my dad a few weeks ago asking him some question on a car one of the kids friends family is selling. After taking it to the mechanic, a body man and the tire/muffler shop, we decided not to purchase it. He was asking $1500. 

Since then, my dad kept his eye out and called me with this car last week. He got it for $900. He put new brakes on and balanced the tires. We spent $60 at the wrecking yard getting parts. Registration, taxes and an alignment will put a bit more on and it will need new tires soon. 

It was so weird driving through the wrecking/auto place with the same guy looking at the same wrecked Suzuki's exactly a year apart. Here is part of  my journal entry from 12-15-11.
"Thursday, December 15, 2011 – Got up and took the car in for new tires. Put on hub caps Got the car inspected and then tried to register it and went to the wrecking yard to pick up any parts I could get from the junk yard to make the car look better inside and out. I put the parts on and it looked really good."

I so think that is weird. While scrubbing down the inside today, I found a dime and five pennies in the glove box and Princess 2 found one under the drivers seat. Guess someone is trying to tell us something. 

The driver smoked. It has an odor. I used the ozonator (See that post here) but it still smelled. I then used oils in a nebulizer. That just made it smell like smoke and cinnamon. We hadn't had time to wash it out before that but today I spent 12 hours working on the car. I bought parts from the junk yard, put them on, scrubbed the car interior several times to get all the tar residue off and it was smelling better but someone suggested I put bowls of vinegar in there so I put some in the ash tray and one in the console. I think part of the problem before was that we didn't know they hadn't wash the ash tray. I washed it 4 times with a scrubber and "totally awesome cleaner" and each time more orange tar colored stuff came off.

I am hoping that will help. I will try to get the seats washed, get covers and new floor mats and hope that also helps. The smell doesn't bother Princess 2 who will be driving it but I put in an air freshener and keep putting oils on them.I'll let you know if I find something that works well. 

So, on 12-12-12, I put in 12 on the car and many more hours on all the other stuff... Obviously, I didn't put any hours into figuring out the photo problem. lol