Here's some photos of my truck earning his keep...
Lenwood California Flying J
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And final destination, Anaheim California. Would post the Vegas photo, but that's on my iPhone (music player) that will come later
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The 2006 Malibu on the back has a recall out for a failed catalytic converter, and it threw the code so down it came. Out of my repair league, mainly space and tools the biggest problem. Not paying for it anyway when a recall exists!
Been busy for a while, but figured I could update some. The car pictured above had it's chapter written a few months ago.
I've always wondered about following a car from it's birth to death. Kinda got to see that some with the malibu. "car death" to me means it ending up in a junkyard. Saw that with a 93 ford explorer, but I block portions of that out... Anyway...
In late 07/early 08 my family got this malibu from a woman in california where they lived for a while. Her uncle gave a corvette to her, so she wanted to get rid of this. Only around 7k? miles if memory serves me right. Went back and forth across the desert (anaheim/vegas) many times, up to mount charleston near it's end, and so forth. Biggest horrah was going to san diego for comic con 2013. On August 19th 2013 0157, The car met it's end on a poorly maintained section of road here during a recent rain drizzle in a piggy ticket corridor (more on that slur in a moment if you are still reading past that point)
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All of us got out perfectly okay (two brothers and myself, I was the last one out. no heroics, just how it ended up) Car is totaled. A tow truck company got $50 to gently let it down and then we drove it back. No fluid loss or anything, steering was mighty f'ed up though. (was less then a mile from our house, and it was around 4:30 am, so no whining about the public in danger please)
Insurance dumped a check in the mail and washed their dirty hands of it. I sold it for around $2k, bringing the "investment" in it ironically to a break even level, not factoring in the new set of tires, oil,maintenance, etc etc. The money involved from this went on to help with a house down payment. Yes it was a legal sale, it was not a salvage title. Not being a loaned vehicle, and the insurance cutting a check for repairs, it was up to us what we did. Bon voyage
And onto the slur... It's probably no secret around here I loath cops. Even alienated a few as a result it appears. Never cared for them, and after this I especially don't. This town is full of keystone cops and jack booted thugs. Without going even deeper on that, I'd pin point it to really starting after 9/11... Anyhow....
We got out of the car, and placed a call to have the bacon possee hurry their donut kesters over and do what they do best: victimize peoples rights. Surprise, the fire department showed up first. NHP showed up later, parked around the curve where the accident happened, and set road flares. Probably envisioning bodies to dance around and jeer at. After the usual chest puffing and mock attempts of concern, it switched over to off color comments "wow, three brothers in a car. imagine what could have happened!" Flare setter then walks back to his car on a blind curve (oh man, no one hit him. too bad) and comes back over. Grills and grills my brother who was driving, throwing his careless barbs. Somehow his heart unfroze a bit, and he decided not to fine my brother for destruction of property. Gee, how mighty generous of you.... NOT
During this tax payer funded dog and pony show sponsored by the poison blue line, 6, yes 6 other cars spun out in the some area. NONE of us who spun out (us getting the worst of it) was excessively speeding. Everything from modern subuarus, to a 70's el camino spun out. On the same section of road going west and the other divided to head south. Subaru got the second worst, plowing his front end a bit into the rocks across from us. Reversed out and took off. You could even see other areas of dirt tracks in and out of the rocks/dirt/mud, from before we had the accident.
As that was going on, the cops kept laughing and laughing about it. Very professional!
The tow truck driver (far away from them) was rolling his eyes and talked about how he watched a NHP officer slapping fines and tickets on a guy stretched to a backer board being loaded into a ambulance for "destroying public property" (his suv slammed into a concrete barricade) Even classier! Kick em while they are down! Morons
No I did not say anything to the cops. Just mentioned very little. Mentioning to road kill flare pig #1 about "see, that's where we started to spin out" got "WELL BOY, THEY ARE GOING TOO FAST!" and other rhetoric. Sure, we will all go 2 miles a hour and get rear ended so you can pin $500 fines on moaning bodies... I follow rigid advice of "Do not say anything unless they ask, and they still won't get it all" Information is weapons for them to pick apart and twist what you say into god knows what.. Coast to coast, this advice applies...
I keep my mouth shut to give the arrogantly gifted plenty of rope to hang themselves with. And hang they did. And continue to do
Sorry for that little rant there if you are still reading. To those who I alienated early on about cops, deal with it. It will take 100 lifetimes for me to respect cops, especially after this. Want me to respect you? Don't act as a gate keeper for a police state wet dream and profit factory. You are here to protect and serve, not Protect a thin blue line and harrass people. I go out of my way to assist people however I can, your excuse is?
Farewell malibu, wished you could have gone to more places. May you hopefully bring someone else joy and many fun adventures!
Score card:
Cops -100000000000
Fire And Rescue: +5000
Regular Citizens +5000
Walker Towing +5000
I average 16 to 17 mpg, and I can just barely break 20 on a flat freeway run (i.e. running down the I-5 between the Bay Area and the foot of the Grapevine). I've seen people do better, but they're usually either running 3.55 gears and an OD transmission or doing something exotic (double-OD, 3.07 gears, etc)...
