Car Ownership Sucks

If you don't feel like reading a bitchfest about my car, feel free to skip this entry...

I like my car. I really do. I try to take good care of it. I don't drive it roughly, I give it a regular oil change, I fix things when they break. So why does it have to treat me this way?

The last little while it has been giving off a wonderful gasoline smell in the passenger compartment when it's idling or after I turn it off... lovely if you like that sort of buzz, but I'm not a big fan... also it has been a bit difficult to start every now and then for whatever reason.

So today I took it to Mazda to have a look and see if they could figure out where the smell is coming from (yes, I looked for leaks under the hood, and checked for puddles beneath the car - nada). Turns out the top of the gas tank where there's a little distribution thingy has been leaking. This is located directly beneath the rear passenger seat... the showed me what was happening and it wasn't pretty. Ok, fine... so we've gotta replace the gas tank and the distribution thingy ($1200ish).

Next he shows me a leak that's coming from up inside the engine... the water pump is leaking. Onto the timing belt. Oh good. So those need to be replaced... another $1200. The timing belt needed to be done about 10k ago anyways, so it's not that huge a deal... annoying nonetheless, but mostly just a catch-up repair.

Now he shows me an engine mount... it's cracked... needs replacing. Woo. More money.

Add on a few other things - a burned out running light, leaky oil cap, rear brakes needing a cleaning, front brake pads nearing their time for replacement, air filter replacement, exhaust pipe starting to corrode, oil pan rusting... my car is apparently a piece of crap... oh, and the bill? Nearly $5,000... I'm going to do the most pressing stuff right now, then get the other stuff done as I can afford it... Sometimes I really hate having a car.

Grr...