What a month…
filed in Uncategorized on Feb.04, 2009
Yeah, yeah, I know. I promised an update for the new car, and I never followed up. So let me run through what has gone on (in no particular order).
Weather – thank FUCK last week is over and done with. 3 days straight of astoundingly hot weather. 43 degrees, followed by 44 the next day, then nearly 46! Record heatwave ever. And that was only in Melbourne. Up north in the country, it was worse. I have no idea what that is in DegreesF, but it was freaking hot. We had the following day (after that lot) at about 35 degrees. Normally we would have said that is a hot day. But after the previous 3 days, it was positively cool!!
Because of the drought and water restrictions, the grass is dead, many plants in the garden are near death (if not already gone). Axl barely survived, as he flat out refuses to come inside anymore (I have no idea why – something has changed and it has freaked him out totally). So I made sure he had plenty of water, and made sure when I got home from work I wetted him down to cool him off. Now normally you pour water on a cat and end up in hospital requiring a blood transfusion. Not this time. Axl squealed for a moment, then realised that it felt cold, so he let me drench him. I swear I saw him actually smile at me!!
The car : I decided to trade in the ol’ Ford AU2 model Falcon. There were a few things going wrong with it (switches not working any more, power windows jamming, etc). I checked out what the going trade-in rate for the old car was, and it came in at about $2k.
I spent a few days cleaning up the old car (including scrubbing the engine to make it look clean andwent to a Ford dealership on the otherside of town on a bit of whim (although I kinda knew what I wanted), and expected them to only offer $2k or less. Guess the clean up paid off, they offered $4550!
I found a car that suited what I wanted, excluding dual-fuel. Close enough! It drives very well, has most of the options I want, RACV tested and approved. And at a good price. Done and Done.
Sadly, things haven’t beenas smooth since then. Fucking Used Car salesmen. Promise the earth, deliver dirt.
1/ To get the car converted to dual-fuel, the caryard were going to give me a cheque for the cost of the conversion, taken off the equity I had in the trade-in. Well, I had to chase that cheque for nearly 2 weeks before they handed it over.
2/ The Government is handing out a $2,000 rebate on the cost of the dual-fuel conversion. However, to qualify, the car has to be in my name. With the conversion booked in for this Tuesday, I called VicRoads, only to find out the car yard still hadn’t transferred ownership to me! Lucky I found out when I did or I would have been out $2k! A few pretty forceful phone calls later, the transfer was completed.
3/ For the dual-fuel conversion, the car yard promised me a loan car while the conversion was done. I dropped the car down to the yard yesterday morning, only to find that no one knew about the loan car. So the one sales guy (not the one I had previosly been dealing with) called my sales guy, and gave him what-for, plenty of four letter words flying, all right in front of me. I snapped and told him to pull his head in, I don’t need to hear this crap. What ever the personality clash he had with his coworker, it wasn’t my problem. I finally got this little buzzbox called a Ford Focus (all the power of a wind-up matchbox car, and as much room iside).
Well, after all that, I picked up the newly converted car. And the job the guy has done looks great, and runs very well. I may move the LPG/ULP switch in the future, but int he meantime, I am now saving 2/3rds my fuel bills! I filled up both tanks tonight. ULP : 112.9c/L (with discount voutcher), LPG : 39.9c/L. W00T!
I promise photos soon. I have them, just need to upload them. I’ll try and get it doen tomorrow, along with a work update.
