The car repair project

I took my car to a collision shop (which reminds me of the British term for such places: "smash shop") for an estimate. The car is 8 years old and has 98K miles on it. It has been running well enough that I figured I'd keep it another few years. I had looked up the Blue Book value yesterday.

The estimator took lots of photos (including of the mileage) and checked for leaky fluids. He then disappeared into the back room for a half hour to call for prices and summarize it all. It would take about 60% of the car's current value to repair it. This took long enough I didn't have time to go down the street to a dealership for a second estimate. He said because of the brutal winter (and lots of sliding around) their schedule is quite backed up and it would be at least a week after I dropped it off before they would start to work on it.

I had an appointment in Ann Arbor with my nutritionist this afternoon. I didn't particularly want to drive that distance in an unheated car and knew I would need an alternative for at least a week. So I rented a car today, open-ended contract. Their delay in picking me up at home and the slowness of the paperwork meant I was late for the nutritionist.

The sound system is not intuitive and I couldn't fiddle with it while driving so I turned it off for the drive to Ann Arbor. After my appointment I sat in the car to tune in my favorite stations and put them on presets. The drive home was much better.



Starting yesterday afternoon the city sent a heavy-duty scooper (one of those huge things with "Caterpillar" on the side, but with wheels rather than treads) to clear the streets in my neighborhood. He scooped away the couple inches of ice as well as yesterday's snow. This was definitely not a case of a couple passes with a plow on a pickup. He worked slowly and thoroughly. We now have big snowbanks along with bare roads.