When this trip began, it should be known that I didn't fully know what I was getting myself into. And it excited me. In fact, it was what kept me from getting another job and once again having a very decent supply of money. But these jobs and this money, I felt, kept me from seeing all aspects of life. It may sound like nonsense, but I wanted to live problematic for a while. I wanted to be poor. At least I thought so.
So far, it hasn't been that bad. We've had a lot of up's and only a few down's. Unbelievably few arguments and frustrations, all mixed in with some good old nights of starving (followed shortly after by overeating), but we're still going strong and we're both very happy. We're now on our way back up the South Island towards Auckland and ultimately leaving New Zealand.
However, after the Beast failed the Warrant of Fitness (WOF) and I decided to continue on for the time being, it has been like a black storm cloud has been hanging over my head ready to dump its contents on to me as soon as I finally got around to bringing the Beast into a shop. And the day it emptied itself was today.
Early this morning we took the car into a few shops. The first one didn't specialize in what we wanted to fix. The second one was quite a crappy place and had a large sign out front that said something to the effect of: We Fix Rust. They said they would fix our hole for $80 (plus tax), but that they couldn't do it today and could we please bring it in the same time tomorrow? Well I was feeling a bit better thinking that our problems would soon be solved, so we bought ourselves some pizza from Domino's for lunch and continued on to get the windshield replaced.
This is where the problems began. The rock damage in the windshield couldn't be fixed and it was decided the windshield must be replaced. This costs $320 (all installation, taxes, and other random charges included - Remember this number for there is going to be a grand total at the end) and would take 3 hours. So Ayu and I took our laptops to the library and there proceeded to watch a movie (Saving Face) until we got a phone call from the shop saying that they took the windshield off only to find severe rust damage and that it would have to be fixed before they could install the windshield. They had a panel beater they trusted, and would bring the Beast to him to give a quote and he would call us and tell us how much it would cost. Well call us he did - to the tune of $210 to fix it and repaint (So the total is up to $530 right now). He also said it would take a while to finish and for the paint to dry and that the earliest he could get it to the glass shop was tomorrow afternoon. This means we had to get a hostel (the going rate being $25 pp / night). We went online, found a hostel, booked one night (which will soon become 3 it looks like), and went over to the panel beater's shop to get our stuff and look at the Beast. The owner was an honest guy (like the glass place had said), and gave us good advice on rust in general - basically its like an iceberg - you only see 10% of it on the surface. By the way the total right now (including 3 nights hostel) is up to $680. The panel beater also said he would fix the rust hole in the back for $120 which I decided was a good idea (the other place was quite crappy and would probably not do a good enough job to pass inspection - this guy said he would take digital before and after pictures, print them out and have a detailed list of what he had done). So I went with him. The total now is $800.
But its not over. We still need to get the emergency brake adjusted and the back door latch fixed. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that was another $200 - rounding out the total to $1,000. All because we didn't get the van checked out thoroughly before we bought it (and because the people selling it weren't what I would call honest people).
The goal is to sell the van for $8,000 and try to recoup some of our losses but I wouldn't be to surprised if our naivety costs us the price of all of these repairs. Only time will tell.
Its a difficult decision when you sell a car as old as this one. Do you tell the next owner all the problems you ran into? Or like the old people who sold us the Beast, do you remain silent when you know there are many problems? I may be young and foolish, but I'd like to think I still have my principles - so I've decided not only are the next owners going to know everything about the van - I'm going to give potential buyers a link to this website so they can see for themselves exactly what we went through with it. But I suppose I should say some nice things about it as well. Here's the good things about the Beast.
- It has never taken more than 2 minutes to start (and that's only once in a while)
- Once warm and running it doesn't leak any oil, and has no faults whatsoever
- The steering is really quite good
- The transmission works wonderfully as well
- The interior is quite clean (due to our obsession with cleanliness and sanitized surfaces)
- The battery is pretty strong (and relatively new if the last owner is to be believed)
Anyways, after it rains, the sun always comes back - so we're looking forward to that. Bye.
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