NYR 2-7-14 - my new car!!!!

Now that I have your attention, I really don't have a new car. Just a loaner car, but still.

It turns out that our Corolla has a recall issue.  Apparently there's something wrong with the airbags that can cause them to deploy at any moment, thereby causing risk of wreck and/or injury.  The car is 11 years old so the way I look at it is that if it hasn't happened yet, odds are in my favor that it never will.  BUT I'd hate to have a wreck because of malfunctioning airbags and have to explain my logic behind ignoring the recall notice I got in the mail.

So I made my appointment and off I went to the Toyota dealership this morning.

And wouldn't you know that they found some other things wrong with the car. 

This is why I HATE taking the car to the dealership for service: they always find something else wrong with the car. 

And it always involves a lot of money.

Sigh.

Today's bill comes to about half the value of the car.  

So I went in for a free service and came out with half a car.  

Hurray!

Of course they gave me the option of not fixing the problems (oil leaks) but what was I going to do?  Well, I did call Jimmy for support and when he have the green light, I signed on the dotted line.

I asked the service guy if he wanted the left kidney or the right kidney, and he very kindly asked if we were military or government.  I normally steer away from that loaded question, but I could smell a discount coming so I quickly answered "government" and we scored a 10% discount.  So it really came down to 40% of the car's value. Double hurray!

What I got from the deal was the use of a fabulous Prius while my car's being worked on.

The lady in charge of paperwork got me all squared away and took me out to this car that required lessons on how to use it. There's no keyed ignition and there's no gearshift.  There's a button to turn it on and a button to put it in park and this cute little mechanism to put it in drive or reverse. Adorable. ThIs is not your mama's 2003 Corolla. 

I've run errands that I didn't even need to run, just so I could drive the car.  I love and am so thankful for driving a new car that smells new and whose brakes don't announce your arrival from a block away.  This car is so quiet you can't even tell it's on!  

You're allowed to keep the loaner car for 24 hours after they call to tell you your car's ready. I pray it takes them 1.5 years to fix my car.