Thursday, February 10, 2005

from the "good bye my old friend" dept.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the passing of my 1987 Mercury Tracer.

I acquired the little car from my pal Chris Holmes, who decided it was time for a new car. This was back in December of 2002. The cost? $500.

The Tracer ran quite well for a year, the only expenses being gas, tranny fluid, oil, insurance and parking.

In B.C. there is a nasty thing called aircare -- a test to make sure old cars don't spew too much. It's a yearly thing -- and in 2004, the Tracer failed.

It wasn't the end of the road. I was able to keep it going after getting a conditional pass (even though it failed, I could still drive it for up to 3 months).

During that time I put about $400 worth of work into it, plus a can of Guaranteed to Pass. It passed!

But problems soon cropped up. Rad issues. New tires needed. Carb problems.

But it still ran, with little investment.

In December, it the carb went on the fritz. I parked it and rented cars as necessary.

When I finally was able to to take it in for a estimate (to the tune of $100), it was apparent that Tracer, with its 390,000km on the odometer, had come to an end of its useful life.

There is a program in BC where you can take an old car such as mine in to have it scrapped and receive one of a number of incentives ($ towards a new car, bike, carpool, etc). I elected 12 months of transit passes -- worth 12 x $65 or so.

All that needed to be done was to drive the car under its own power to the scrap yard in Surrey. Which I did with the help of Lorne last night. Incidentally, Lorne bought a new car recently, and I bought his 1990 Park Ave or whatever for $400.

We dropped it off, and this morning I went out and had the paperwork finished. The plates were removed and I drove off before the crane came by to lift it away.

It was a great and mostly dependably car. If there's an automotive heaven, you know they've got a hell of a... sub-compact. And a years worth of bus passes are a good thing!

Cheers, little Tracer!

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