The Curse

There is a curse in my family with cars. Who placed this curse on us? Who knows?

I can't remember all the car troubles my family has had, but here are a few.

When I was 14, my family had a suburban. Right after it was paid off (family can correct me if I'm wrong), they were in a HUGE car accident and the suburban was totaled. Sadly, the man who hit them did not have insurance.

This next car WAS a problem waiting to happen. When I turned 16, my dad had this great idea to buy me a monte carlo. A mechanic even told my dad not to buy. My dad, being sentimental about his own monte carlo, bought it anyway. A few months later, it caught on fire from bad radio wiring. We called it 'the bomb' after that. ONE good and funny memory with that car, is that my friends and I were going to answer this guy who'd asked me to a dance. I told them not to turn on the radio or the car might catch on fire again. Someone accidentally knocked the radio dial and it came on. We all started screaming, frantically trying to turn off the radio and get out at the same time.

After the suburban, my parents got a ford excursion. It was a BAd omen when the week we got it, someone ran into the back of us. Luckily it wasn't even dented. Once again, however, right after being paid it off, someone rammed into the back and basically totaled the excursion (although, of course, the insurance company disagreed with the mechanic). They got it fixed the best they could, but I don't think it's ever been the same again.

Now the saga continues into the next generation.

Right before Eli was born, I got rear ended basically totaling our car since it was so old, but insurance wouldn't total it. So we took the money for repairs and with some of our savings bought another car. We knew it had a leak in the power fluid but we had taken it in before we left back to DC to get that and the A/C fixed. They fixed the A/C but not the leak. We didn't figure that out until we were part way across the country. Well, about a week after Eli was born, this car caught on fire and burned up. That story is funny to tell now, BUT you can just imagine the tears shed at the time.

So, now we have a little Hyundai Accent. It's been fairly good. We've taken great care to get the oil changed when needed, have the scheduled maintenance completed, etc. Last year, the transmission went out. Luckily it was under warranty so the only complication with that was it taking 3 weeks and a call by me to complain in order to get the new transmission shipped from wherever it was. They didn't pay for a rental car.

Later that same year, Eli was playing with the interior lights and the battery went dead. One jump didn't do the trick and after several weeks of me getting stranded, we bought a new battery.

Then car worked great with the only major expenses being new tires and the 60,000 mile scheduled maintenance.

NOW, with the upcoming birth of baby #2, our car has tried to commit suicide and there isn't even 100,000 miles on it.

It's the curse. Only maybe our problems won't come when we've just paid off the car, but in those years we have babies.

Do any of you have family curses?