perlmonger | (no subject)

It seems that the car I’ve had for the last nine and a half years is dying; we took it into our tame mechanic for its MOT yesterday and they reckon getting it sorted is £700-£800 on a car that, checking t’web, would at best fetch £600-£700 if sold. Our garage say they’ll arrange an indecent burial for the thing for us, and that’s probably the sensible thing to do.

But.

I feel like a small part of me would die with the car; I actually lay awake last night agonising over it. This is mad, so I spent a further while trying to work out why.

It turns out that the car[1] is one of only three things of significance[2,3] that I have ever bought in my life just for me; no influence from other people’s agendas, and all three to a greater or lesser extent costing more than I could sanely spend at the time of purchase. Special things: gifts to myself, if you like. I guess the importance these have to me are a reflection of the aridity of the first half of my life; the pain I’m feeling right now is hardly rational...

We’ll be going to fetch the car home shortly, before we finally decide what to do with it (I’ll probably get a second opinion from a Citroën specialist, at least) but my feeling is that its time has come, and that I’ll never again have a car that means anything other than its surface functionality. Which, in environmental terms, is probably not a bad thing. It still hurts though; perhaps the best thing would be to donate it to

geoffcampbell as next year’s Summer Camp field car - it could go out with a (likely literal) bang then :)

[1] Citroën Xantia Activa
[2] Stokke Wing
[3] Manticore Mantra + LVX

ETA Geoff’s correct LJ name (not that he uses the thing)

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I know there's the buddhist non attachment thing, but I'm all attached to my stuff personally. I get the same bereft reaction when my little 'just what I wanted, chose, paid for and love' laptop runs into problems. grieve for it - symbol or substance, it matters to you

You could try AP Autocare www.apautocare.co.uk in Bedminster. They're Citroën specialists and have been servicing my Peugeot for the past few years. They seem to be resonable prices and provide a good service.

Yes; they replaced the low-pressure hydraulic return Cthulhoid rubber monstrosity for me a while back.

Having now seen the MOT failure document, I think I'm going to have to accept that the car is effectively demised though. If we had a few grand lying around looking for a home to do a proper rebuild, I'd probably do so, but we don't...

I kind of know what you mean. On Saturday I had to take the old boat back from being surveyed to home. It's ages since I'd taken it anywhere and it was really good to be able to have a decent trip on the thing. The fact that I had the cheque from the buyers paying for it in my pocket helped with the detachment somewhat though!

It still hurts though; perhaps the best thing would be to donate it to

geoffcampbell as next year’s Summer Camp field car - it could go out with a (likely literal) bang then :)

Especially, if assorted hatchets are buried, and

khaylock is there.

Alice.