“Goodnight, sweet princess.”
Yes, it is appropriate to misquote Shakespeare’s Hamlet in reference to the death of my beloved Honda Accord.
She had 263,000 miles on her when she made that final shift into overdrive, and she was epic in every way a car can be.
Together, we explored the mountains of Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, traversed the deserts of Nevada and Utah and the rolling farmland of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. About the only thing she ever asked for in return was routine maintenance and clean nappies every 3,000 miles.
Along the way I met some great — and not-so-great — mechanics and junkyard operators. Boy, I could have used Angie’s List.
Old cars make unscrupulous mechanics salivate. I’ve seen their eyes light up when I ask them to “make sure everything is OK.” Their suggested repairs are invariably expensive and unnecessary.
But by good luck and good advice, I unwittingly used some highly rated service providers through the years: Johans Hondura in Oklahoma City replaced a timing belt and brakes; Gordon Permann and Honda Auto Specialists in Fort Worth, Texas, flushed the radiator and performed assorted other routine maintenance.
Now I’m the owner of a 1997 Toyota Corolla with a mere 113,000 miles on her. That’s my car-buying strategy: Pay cash for a cheap, high-mileage vehicle, drive it into the ground for 10 years and then buy another one.
A-Lister Tyler Automotive gave the Corolla a clean bill of health — and charged only $50 for the checkup and replacement of a door hinge. And so, hand-in-gearshift, my Corolla and I welcome the adventures awaiting us in the next 100,000 miles.
Awesome. I’m past 210,000 on my Ford and hoping to get to 250,000 or above. You have the same attitude towards cars that I do. I’m a Point A to Point B type of guy.
My Nissan Quest minivan has over 170k on it. Part of me wishes the thing would just die, but the other part of me realizes the value of having no car payment. And with three dogs, the space is valuable, too. But I do still entertain the dream of zipping around town in a Mazdaspeed3 or somesuch speedy little car, like my old Nissan 240sx I sold a few years back.