I’m currently driving a Kia Rondo. It’s a courtesy car from BMW that they were nice enough to issue to me as they go about fixing mine up (a 330xi). The Rondo is currently parked at the bottom of the driveway because it doesn’t have enough traction to make it up.

Approximately $4000 later (including tax), the repairs on my car will include:

• New snow tires. I’ve felt like I’ve been driving on square tires for the entire season. I knew that one tire was warped because of a ball joint issue that the car had last year but things have been steadily worsening. One of the other tires developed a slow leak a few days ago, and that’s what prompted me to take the car in. The leak turned out to be from 2 carpenter’s nails embedded in it. Those were probably from the construction going on next door. An inspection of the tires found them all to be in rough shape. They are about 6 years old.
• An alignment.
• New belts. The old ones are cracked.
• The passenger-side blinker housing. New clips are needed to hold this into the car. I’ve had it scotch taped to the car for the past 3 months after it flew out while I was on the highway one day and was left dangling by the wire.
• New wiper arm linkage assembly. My wipers seized up on me a couple of months ago during a snow storm. I had to unseize them with force. After that the passenger side one never worked properly.
• Final stage blower. The car’s environmental control system’s fan is on the blink and is about to fail. Failure of the fan can cause power draw from the battery even while the car is off.
• Driver side mirror. The reflective surface has been rusted for at least a year.
• Windshield washer jets. These are out of alignment and need adjusting (requires a special tool).
• Rotors. The rotors have needed changing since about a year ago. Not only has the car been giving me a bumpy ride on the winter tires, but it has quite an embarrasing pulsation when braking. If it also backfired every so often, my car would be a definition of “jalopy”.
• Tune up and oil service. $900 for the 100,000 km inspection, tune up and oil service.
• Broken underside splash shields. The plastic shields under the car need to be changed.
• Key lock tire bolts. These are rusted and need to be replaced.
• Inoperative headlight leveler. My light leveler hasn’t been working. I haven’t been able to figure out if that’s been the case since the last time I took the car in for service (late last spring) or since I ran into a snow bank during a white out last winter. The mechanic says that he thinks it’s because the apprentice mechanic that worked on my car last time didn’t reconnect the leveler properly. This goes hand in hand with my loose car tire that I had shortly after that last service.

John, the mechanic this time, says that overall the car “is in pretty good shape” for the mileage it has (225,000 km) and the age it is (6.5 years). This might have something to do with the $3000 I spent last year for oil service, new ball joints, new rear springs and brake pads.

From the time that I bought the car, it’s flirted with bad karma. The second day after I picked it up, it was rear-ended at a traffic light. I’ve had a horse run into me. I’ve gotten stuck in a snow bank trying to avoid a car during a severe white-out. Actually I’ve run into a few other snow banks. I think the car must have fallen on the driver side off the boat when it was shipped because when I picked it up there were multiple scratches on the trim on that side and over the subsequent few months various lights blew out on that side. It’s had the BMW badge stolen from the trunk and been rammed in a parking lot.

Through all of that, though, the car has kept me safe. The drive from Cowland to Workland can be more than treacherous in the winter and when the car is working properly, it is very stable. One winter as I was driving to work I hit a patch of black ice and started fishtailing across 2 lanes. The car’s traction control kicked in and eventually got me back on track. I was lucky that there were no other cars in close proximity to me. The adventure with the horse could also have ended more unfortunately.

I have a feeling, however, that John the mechanic will do more for the car than just get it running safely again. He’s an Italian guy with a cool karmic aura about him. He says he’s been doing Kung Fu since he was 14 and his training has some Shaolin stuff in it. Maybe it has something to do with that, but I felt a connection with him when I met him. I’m think my car will also.