highway_patrol
Well-Known Member
in my house hold we have 3 cars, 1998 chrysler cirrus lxi v6 auto, 2002 ford ranger xlt 4 cyl 5 spd, and our 2002 honda accord se sedan.
ill start with the chrysler. i got this car in jan 04 with 6K mi on it from my great aunt who had just stopped driving. my parents told me it was MY car until it died. 9 mo and 7k mi later i got my ticket and my mom wanted to put a FEW miles on it driving to work and back because i wasnt driving for a while. fast forward to now. the car is STILL being driven by her to work and it now has 93K mi on it. EVERY system, aside from oil, in the car either needs fluids replaced and/or flushed. when we took it in at the 60K mi service in june 06 they told my parents the rotors were WARPED, they had been like that when i got the car, my parents were telling me i was full of crap because "the car has only 6000mi on it". also the way my dad drives he pulses the gas on then off which you can feel when you are riding with him. this has led to him hitting the gas in the middle of a shift, sometimes just a little sometimes flooring it onto the interstate. now the car shifts hard at random and the torque converter slips gears sometimes by letting the engine over rev from 500-1500 rpms. last thing for this car, when it was time to replace the tires they asked me which ones to buy, i wrote down the exact price, brand, model, size and even the wal mart stock number, yes we buy tires at wal mart. when they get back 4 hrs later they bought tires that were more expensive and worse in general. here are the reasons why they were worse than the ones i specified 1) the grip was less, 2) the price which they complained about, 3) going around turns even at normal driving speeds the sidewalls give and flex which makes the back end wag or in some cases the front sidewalls hold then give which snaps the back end around which is not remedied by the flexing sidewalls of the rear tires and 4) they told me they bought these instead of the ones i wrote down because the wal mart associate said they were better.
next up is the ranger. when one of the tires was losing air, my dad checked the manual for tire pressure. 1 month earlier when they bought the truck in apr 04 i told them to have the dealer trade manuals because we had one for f350-550 not for a ranger. my parents said they wont do that because "They didn't notice right away so they'll charge us for it". when my dad put air in the tire, he put in 90 LBS of air. the tire is only rated for 40 psi max. the only other thing with the truck is the cd player is out of alignment so sometimes it plays sometimes it doesn't, they deem this an unnecessary fix because my dad doesnt use it and they dont understand that going from the chrysler with a tape adapter or the accord with a cd player that works is very annoying when the ranger doesnt even have a tape deck, just radio.
now its time for the accord. im going to list the problems in order oldest to newest and then address each one. 1) transmission problem like the chrysler, 2) bent rim/tire problem 3) brakes and 4) services.
the transmission problem is a result of my dad driving the car from july 03 to sept 04, it is of the same type as the chrysler but worse because it has less power. in this case the hard shifts are 2-3 and 3-4 because most of the speeds he drives to work are from 35-50 mph.
the bent rim is from when he was driving back from one of my sisters soccer games 25 mi away in sept 03. on the interstate he had a blowout at 70. he got off the interstate fine but drove 5 mi on the flat, he could have driven 1.5 mi to the honda dealership and called from there or even had it fixed. anyways wal mart didnt notice the flat spot on the rim, big surprise there. it wasnt until july 05 that it became really apparent, by this time we had all 4 tires from wal mart, which were the ones that i had told them to buy. in july we had an alignment done because there was a wiggle in the steering. this is when we found out there was a flat spot. my parents blame it on me doing donuts in the mud in our yard, wtf? the tire on that rim was cupped and the other front tire was messed up because there was never enough air in it. anyways a year later in july 06, right before my parents were about to call honda to buy the $450 se rim, see singular, i told them that my boss was selling his ex rims and tires from the factory for $350. he bought his accord new and put rims and tires on it after he bought it. when we bought his rims and tires, he drove them so little they still have the nubs and all the stickers on them from the factory. to sum this part up it took me a month to convince them to buy from him because he wasn't a reputable dealer, just my manager, plus i think they were a little leary of him because he was black. (for the record i am not at all racist, if i have used the wrong name in this case let me know, i hope i havent offened anybody).
during the summer of 05 i worked at our local benz dealership and i drove the accord to work. we had the 60k mi service done at this time which found the above problem i found out that my parents had been told 6 months earlier to replace the brakes. when spring began in 05 i had been telling my parents every week that the brakes needed checked but once again they told me i was wrong and didnt know anything. when they replaced the rotors and pads, honda said that the pads were on the backing pieces and the rotors were past the point of resurfacing.
the last thing is that the only regular maintenance that my parents do to any of the cars is oil changes. the accord has only had its 60k mi service and right now it has 100669 mi on it, the truck has 51526 mi on it and it hasnt had any services and the chrysler has 93851 mi and its only had the 60k mi service.
too sum this all up my parents dont care as much as they should for the cars they drive and they blame every single problem on me.
ill start with the chrysler. i got this car in jan 04 with 6K mi on it from my great aunt who had just stopped driving. my parents told me it was MY car until it died. 9 mo and 7k mi later i got my ticket and my mom wanted to put a FEW miles on it driving to work and back because i wasnt driving for a while. fast forward to now. the car is STILL being driven by her to work and it now has 93K mi on it. EVERY system, aside from oil, in the car either needs fluids replaced and/or flushed. when we took it in at the 60K mi service in june 06 they told my parents the rotors were WARPED, they had been like that when i got the car, my parents were telling me i was full of crap because "the car has only 6000mi on it". also the way my dad drives he pulses the gas on then off which you can feel when you are riding with him. this has led to him hitting the gas in the middle of a shift, sometimes just a little sometimes flooring it onto the interstate. now the car shifts hard at random and the torque converter slips gears sometimes by letting the engine over rev from 500-1500 rpms. last thing for this car, when it was time to replace the tires they asked me which ones to buy, i wrote down the exact price, brand, model, size and even the wal mart stock number, yes we buy tires at wal mart. when they get back 4 hrs later they bought tires that were more expensive and worse in general. here are the reasons why they were worse than the ones i specified 1) the grip was less, 2) the price which they complained about, 3) going around turns even at normal driving speeds the sidewalls give and flex which makes the back end wag or in some cases the front sidewalls hold then give which snaps the back end around which is not remedied by the flexing sidewalls of the rear tires and 4) they told me they bought these instead of the ones i wrote down because the wal mart associate said they were better.
next up is the ranger. when one of the tires was losing air, my dad checked the manual for tire pressure. 1 month earlier when they bought the truck in apr 04 i told them to have the dealer trade manuals because we had one for f350-550 not for a ranger. my parents said they wont do that because "They didn't notice right away so they'll charge us for it". when my dad put air in the tire, he put in 90 LBS of air. the tire is only rated for 40 psi max. the only other thing with the truck is the cd player is out of alignment so sometimes it plays sometimes it doesn't, they deem this an unnecessary fix because my dad doesnt use it and they dont understand that going from the chrysler with a tape adapter or the accord with a cd player that works is very annoying when the ranger doesnt even have a tape deck, just radio.
now its time for the accord. im going to list the problems in order oldest to newest and then address each one. 1) transmission problem like the chrysler, 2) bent rim/tire problem 3) brakes and 4) services.
the transmission problem is a result of my dad driving the car from july 03 to sept 04, it is of the same type as the chrysler but worse because it has less power. in this case the hard shifts are 2-3 and 3-4 because most of the speeds he drives to work are from 35-50 mph.
the bent rim is from when he was driving back from one of my sisters soccer games 25 mi away in sept 03. on the interstate he had a blowout at 70. he got off the interstate fine but drove 5 mi on the flat, he could have driven 1.5 mi to the honda dealership and called from there or even had it fixed. anyways wal mart didnt notice the flat spot on the rim, big surprise there. it wasnt until july 05 that it became really apparent, by this time we had all 4 tires from wal mart, which were the ones that i had told them to buy. in july we had an alignment done because there was a wiggle in the steering. this is when we found out there was a flat spot. my parents blame it on me doing donuts in the mud in our yard, wtf? the tire on that rim was cupped and the other front tire was messed up because there was never enough air in it. anyways a year later in july 06, right before my parents were about to call honda to buy the $450 se rim, see singular, i told them that my boss was selling his ex rims and tires from the factory for $350. he bought his accord new and put rims and tires on it after he bought it. when we bought his rims and tires, he drove them so little they still have the nubs and all the stickers on them from the factory. to sum this part up it took me a month to convince them to buy from him because he wasn't a reputable dealer, just my manager, plus i think they were a little leary of him because he was black. (for the record i am not at all racist, if i have used the wrong name in this case let me know, i hope i havent offened anybody).
during the summer of 05 i worked at our local benz dealership and i drove the accord to work. we had the 60k mi service done at this time which found the above problem i found out that my parents had been told 6 months earlier to replace the brakes. when spring began in 05 i had been telling my parents every week that the brakes needed checked but once again they told me i was wrong and didnt know anything. when they replaced the rotors and pads, honda said that the pads were on the backing pieces and the rotors were past the point of resurfacing.
the last thing is that the only regular maintenance that my parents do to any of the cars is oil changes. the accord has only had its 60k mi service and right now it has 100669 mi on it, the truck has 51526 mi on it and it hasnt had any services and the chrysler has 93851 mi and its only had the 60k mi service.
too sum this all up my parents dont care as much as they should for the cars they drive and they blame every single problem on me.
) he laughs and says, "the elantra's got like 4500 miles on the last oil change," or "i havent changed the vans oil since last august." last time i was home, i told him that if i dont change my oil, my car will stop revving over 4000rpm...it will just stop. he had such a surprised look on his face 
