The Graduate's car died this week. Every time we had to fix a small something in it, we hoped it would last just a bit longer. This summer we replaced the fuel pump and once again spent a couple hundred, hoping to buy some more time. It was still cheaper than a car payment! Back then we had hoped it would make it until The Graduate left for college (BUT that is a whole other story) and it certainly would have, having died in mid September. It's been a faithful car and having 322,409 miles proves it has been more than faithful since we bought it used about 6 or 7 years ago for Bob to use for work. At that time, we were trading up from my Honda which had over 200,000 miles on it. As this car gained more and more miles, Bob felt he needed something more reliable for work so this became the default car when others were not available for transportation for the rest of us. More recently, The Graduate has used it for work almost exclusively. So much so, it feels like "her" car.
This past weekend, when she left work, it would barely back out of the parking space and was making horrendous noise. She was able to get it up to speed and the noise dissipated, but the trouble was disconcerting. Bob met her to follow her home and we parked it for the last time. We are hoping to donate it to a Veteran's organization soon. In the meantime, it sits beside our garage, a reminder of the many times it was used by all of us for vacations, work, and dog transportation.
It's hard to say good-bye to your first car.
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