December 4th we hear our car/brakes making a squeaking sound, so we call the next morning and get it in to get checked out. The rotors aren't gripping properly or some such nonsense and the vibrating is causing the sound. So nearly $250 and one day later we picked up the car.
December 8th. The garage door is broken, won't close and my husband has to work until after Lowes is closed. I was able to make it close, but I knew as soon as it was opened again the problem would return. He was able to leave work long enough to get supplies and then fixed it after work. it was only meant to be a temporary fix until we could get a new door, but then the next day happened.
December 9th. I was headed to the Hot Chocolate 15K/5K race expo to pick up my race packet. I went to make a stop and wait until it was my turn to make a right turn. Unfortunately my car had other ideas. I hadn't driven since the brakes were worked on and it didn't stop the same. That led to an accident and the passenger of the other car instantly got out and start yelling at me like I had done it on purpose. My 3 year old was in the car with me, but with the low speed everybody was fine. My front end crumpled like a wet sack, so I instantly knew it wasn't driveable. I called my husband at work to pick us up. Police were called, information exchanged, and then we sat and waited for the tow truck. After the police and other car left, I pretty much lost it. Lots of crying, pretty much for an entire hour. I've been in 6 accidents, but this was the first one where my insurance was listing me as "at fault." As soon as the Civic was dropped off, we went and got the rental and my hubby drove me to pick up my packet.
Fast forward a week and I find out my 6 year old car has almost $6000 in damage and they are writing it off as a total loss. When we got the car it had 16 miles on it and it had just overy 91,000 on it at the time of the accident. Fresh tank of gas and relatively new tires.
We start looking at options for a second car. The FIL has a free car, but it's in Michigan and not something we could get to for at least a month. So I start searching for used cars. I found one that was everything we needed and for a really great price.
After nearly two weeks, a ton of phone calls, and some drama we got our Pilot. Thanks to the settlement from the Civic, we were able to put $3000 down and reduce our payments.
Holidays were great though and I got to see my bestie when she was in town from New York. I hadn't seen her in two years. I really need to get up there and visit her, it's just not feasible right now.
I'm so glad 2016 is over, but I'm also worried about what will happen in the future.
