Category: Cars

People always look at me in disbelief when I say I prefer owning and driving diesel cars. Apparently, no one drives diesel anymore. I’ve even heard some people go as far as saying diesel is obsolete and that there are too many downsides to choosing diesel. I’m here to raise diesel awareness! Does that sound ridiculous? Probably. But anti-diesel people are seriously missing out on something great.

According to my mechanic, Raceview has few diesel cars because many drivers think diesel is bad for the environment. He tries to convince them otherwise, but they refuse to listen. It is clear to me that these people struggle to understand the concept of CO2 emissions. If we humans keep being frivolous with our CO2 emissions, we’re going to increase the speed of global warming while also putting us all at risk of greater respiratory difficulties. This was a big reason why I chose a diesel car. They have been proven to be a lot more fuel efficient than petrol engines, and produce a lower amount of CO2. Do you know what else fuel efficiency means? It means the car is cheaper to run! Since switching to diesel, I have discovered that I am saving up to double the kilometres I would’ve gotten on my petrol-engine car. Plus, I’ve noticed a lot fewer price fluctuations in having a diesel vehicle. This probably comes down to the fact that few people drive diesel cars so there’s less demand.

A few people have asked me ‘how much does a diesel service cost?’ I know they’re asking me this because they have it in their head that diesel vehicles are more costly to run, service and repair. They just need to do a bit more research and they will see it’s nothing that outrageous. It’s these sorts of mindsets I want to change with my diesel vehicle awareness club. I assume it will be a small club to start off with as there are few diesel drivers, but I’m sure with some time and press it will grow in notoriety.

I have owned my car for about fifteen years now and I think it’s beginning to break. It is a really great car and it has lasted for such a long time, especially since I got it second-hand and I’m not really sure how long the previous owner had it for.

This car is white in colour and doesn’t have any scratches or stains since it is still very shiny. I don’t know what the interior material is, but it’s very soft and comfortable and is a black colour. I have decorated the inside of my car with small decorations, including a car freshener that makes it smell nice and is good for when I have passengers in my car.

Since I have had the car for such a long time, I have also taken it to a number of different car repair shops, for a number of different problems. There have been broken air conditioners, flat tyres, and one time I accidentally hit a tree while parking. A few years ago Adelaide had some crazy hail and it dented my car. Most of my friends also got dents in their cars since none of us park in garages.

Another thing I have to do soon is find a mechanic that offers a car air conditioning regas and electrical service. Adelaide has a number of these mechanics, but I am specifically looking for one that works with older cars, as there are several parts that are specific to these makes and models that many of the newer mechanics do not understand. Since I am not planning to resell this car, I’m not too concerned about the manufacturer’s warranty, however I would like the car to be fixed to a high standard. If the car is fixed, it might last longer than I had originally thought. I am looking at booking with the same mechanic who fixed the dents that came from the hail, so I know he does a good job.

On Friday the 13th, I’m going on a road trip with my boyfriend for our four year anniversary. As it’s such a spooky day, probably the spookiest day other than October 31st, we decided that we’d make our anniversary spooky themed. That means dressing up in scary costumes, and visiting the scariest-named suburb in Australia. Naturally, we’ve chosen Deception Bay as our destination, as the plot of almost every horror movie starts or ends with some kind of deception. 

To prepare for our road trip, my boyfriend took our car to get a professional tyre service. We wouldn’t want anything going wrong with our tyres during our road trip. We’ve got quite a bit of ground to cover before we even arrive at Deception Bay, and delaying that with any tyre issues would be less than ideal. We want to get to our destination as soon as possible so that we can celebrate our anniversary – it’s four years today since he first asked me to be his girlfriend! How sweet.

I’m hoping that during our trip, we don’t need any sort of emergency car service. Deception Bay, as I’ve said, isn’t overly close to where we live. We’ll have to travel about five hours to get there which could take its toll on the car. My car is definitely on the older side which is why my boyfriend really wanted to get a tyre service before we left. He’s just so thoughtful. I am proud and lucky to have him as my boyfriend. 

Anyway, we’re almost about to leave. I have completely checked out mentally from work and I don’t plan on thinking about anything other than our love for the next seventy-two hours. How exciting!

I’m seriously so consumed by our road trip that I can’t even be bothered to finish off this blog post. I’m just rambling now. How cute. My boyfriend still makes me tongue tied after all these years.

I just had my birthday! It’s been an incredible day spent with my family and I’m about to leave my parents to go to my birthday party. Even though it’s my twenty-first birthday and my parents really wanted to be with me to celebrate, I had to tell them no. It would be too embarrassing to have them around when everyone is just trying to party and have fun. I’m also a bit shocked because the new car they alluded to hasn’t arrived yet. I’ve got my car service booked in for tomorrow afternoon so I’m not really sure what’s going to happen.

I’m starting to get a bad feeling that I’m going to have to call up the mechanic servicing the Cambridge area and cancel the appointment. I can’t really show up to an appointment without a car to service. That would be so embarrassing. Even my boyfriend is a little on edge about the fact that no car has arrived yet. Maybe my parents will have it taken to my twenty-first birthday party later this evening? How will they get it there if I haven’t invited them? I may have made a grave mistake. I’ll probably end up crying at my birthday party if my parents don’t surprise me with a car. That would be so embarrassing and it would ruin my birthday which I’ve been so excited for all week.

I just want a car with an advanced driver assistance system. Is that too much to ask?! My parents have been promising something similar for years now and it would be so unfair of them to just not deliver on the promise that they’ve made. I know they’re really disappointed that I’m not letting them come to my birthday party, but I’m a grown up now and that’s life! They need to accept that they can’t always be around me and that as I get older, they won’t be a part of my life as much.

It’s almost time for my yearly logbook service. I have a newish car, it was made in 2017 and it’s now 2022, so I’m still within my manufacturer’s logbook requirements. I think it may last ten years? I’m not sure. I just give the mechanic my logbook and let her do whatever it is she needs to do. After all, she’s the expert mechanic servicing Ringwood cars, not me.

I wonder if my car will need anything out of the ordinary for this service. Last time, I needed to get something extra done to my wheels. I’m not quite sure what was wrong with them, maybe they had become misaligned or something. Whatever it was I’m not sure, but I gave my mechanic a nod and let her do what needed to be done. It cost me a bit extra than I would have liked it to, but my mechanic did a great job and so I can’t complain. My car has run incredibly well this year and it’s all thanks to the incredible work she has done. 

I have a feeling that I might need a break repair. In the Ringwood area, the roads are really hilly and rough. I also have to do a lot of stop-start driving once I hit roads closer to the city, which puts pressure on my brakes. I am also a bit of a nervous driver and so I hover over the brakes a lot as I drive. A lot of the time, I’m driving with my foot against the brake pedal. That’s why I have a feeling that my car will need some sort of brake repair or service, even though it’s pretty much new and is still in its logbook service period. I guess it’s my fault for driving so anxiously once I hit the city traffic.

Whatever the price of the logbook service is, I’m lucky that I’ll be able to afford it. I don’t have a high paying job by any stretch of the imagination, but I am good at budgeting and have money saved for situations such as this. 

My car breaks down every other week, I swear. Everyone’s telling me that it’s because I haven’t gotten serviced since I purchased it second hand and that it’s my fault for not making sure it was issued with a roadworthy certificate before purchasing it. Phsst. I only had ten minutes to make the purchase with the guy who previously owned the vehicle. Do you really think that I had time to ask him whether he got a roadworthy certificate? Near me, people don’t do those sorts of things. Especially under time pressure. We had time for a “Hey mate,” each and then that was that. I paid him in cash and as soon as I had done so, he was gone.

I am very sick of my car breaking down though. I can hardly get from A to B anymore without something making a weird noise or falling off or stopping altogether. It’s especially annoying having everyone say that I should’ve done this or I should’ve done that as well, because there’s no going back now and it’s too late to dwell on what I did or didn’t do.

It’s gotten to the point where I do think I’m going to have to book an appointment with a mechanic. Underwood is a good area in terms of variety, but all my friends have said I’m going to need to go to the best of the best if I want to have any chance of being able to drive my car properly again. I’ve never actually been able to drive my car properly, but it’s significantly worse now than it used to be.

I’m really hoping that the mechanic can do something to fix my car. I don’t know exactly what needs to be done – maybe my car suspension needs to be repaired or my car needs to be looked over by an automotive mechanic. Whatever it is, I hope my car can be fixed because I really need to be able to drive.

I’ve had my car for more than a decade now and I think it’s starting to break down. It’s lasted for such a long time, especially since I actually bought it second-hand and I can’t really remember how long the person before me owned it for. This car is black in colour and is still very shiny when I get it washed. The interior is soft and made of the kind of material that isn’t leather. Over the years, I’ve decorated the inside of my car with little dangly knick knacks and bobbleheads, and also added some lovely car freshener scents to make it smell nice for guests.

My car has also frequented a number of car repair shops, as it’s had its fair share of problems over the years. Flat tires, scrapes while parking, that kind of thing. One of my windscreen wipers even broke off in the crazy winds that happened about five years ago in South Australia! Luckily, it was never dented in the hail that same week. A few of my friends’ cars got destroyed by the hail and those were some pretty costly repairs. Especially when almost everybody in the city had the same issue.

One thing I have to do soon is find a place that offers a car air conditioning regas and electrical service. Adelaide has a few of these around, but I’d love to find one that specifically deals with older cars. I’m not too concerned about the warranty or anything since I’m not planning to resell; I simply want the problems fixed. If the mechanic can fix them professionally and to a high standard, it’s very possible that my car could last for a lot longer than I had originally thought. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be driving it when I’m in my forties. Maybe I could show my car to my kids and bring them up driving in it. That would be pretty great.

It was not an army that arrived at the gates of New Hobart, but two small creatures. Unarmed but more dangerous than a thousand troops, the Little Men had arrived to bring down the walls of humanity’s last stronghold in the Tasman Wastes.

Charlie stood in Fred Bentleigh’s office, its wide window offering an excellent view of the stronghold’s front. From here, the mayor of New Hobart would be able to strategise and offer guidance to those in the heat of battle.

“Do you give us a chance?” Charlie asked.

Fred sat at his desk, sifting through a dozen reports. “500 against 2? I don’t like our odds, but anything is possible. We’ve got strike forces set up and ready to move from two locations; Brighton and Cambridge. Once the battle starts, they’ll move in and attempt to flank the enemy.”

“Are they at the old mobile mechanic based in Brighton?” asked Charlie. “That’s a good vantage point. Clever move.”

Nodding, Fred said, “I thought it would work well. We’ve got a lot of abandoned buildings out there, so why not make the most of them? It’s not like anybody needs tyre repairs near Brighton anyway, given we don’t have many cars anymore.”

“So, we put up our best fight here and hope the flanking forces can catch them off guard. All we need is a couple of lucky hits and we’ll take these guys down. Have we got archers?”

Fred tapped one of his reports. “Three dozen troops on top of the wall, ready to fire a barrage on them. Do you think we need more?”

“Get a couple dozen more up there, at least,” said Charlie. “The more arrows we have firing at them, the better our chances of getting lucky and ending this early.” 

Ending this battle early was perhaps their only chance of getting out of this alive. She’d seen what the Little Men could do, not once but twice now. As Fred went back to making arrangements, Charlie couldn’t help but feel that she’d doomed them all.

‘Quick, quick!’ Blue yelled, throwing himself through the open back door of the SUV. ‘Drive!’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Orange mumbled, adjusting his side mirrors.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Blue screeched from the back seat, the whites of his eyes standing out from his balaclava. ‘Drive!’

‘Hey,’ Orange said sternly, angling the rear-view mirror so he could look at his accomplice in the backseat. ‘Safety is important, young man. If you don’t prepare before you drive, you might not arrive alive.’

He nodded, lesson delivered, and started patting his jacket.

‘Now where did I put those keys?’

Blue groaned and slid down in his seat. The distant sound of sirens began to grow louder.

‘I’m going to prison,’ he whispered to himself.

The SUV rumbled to life underneath him.

‘Found them!’ Orange called back with a cackle. ‘They were in the ignition already!’

‘Drive the car!’

‘Yeesh,’ Orange muttered, dropping the transmission into drive and checking the traffic was clear. He paused to let a police car, lights flashing and sirens blaring, fly past, screeching to a stop outside of the bank. Orange shook his head.

‘Driving like that is why auto repair is such big business nowadays.’

Blue clutched his duffle bag and began to mumble a prayer his mother had taught him when he was a boy.

The coast clear, Orange finally pulled the SUV out, fiddling with the radio as they crisscrossed the suburban streets a full ten kilometres under the speed limit.

‘See,’ he chuckled, ‘slow and steady wins the– what the heck?!’

Blue glared at his driver from the back seat.

‘Who are you?’ he seethed.

‘You told me not to use my real–’

‘I was told you were a professional.’

‘Buddy, I’m just an average bloke who takes care of his car by getting an annual general car service around Bankstown, I don’t know who told you I did anything else.’

‘Wait,’ Blue frowned. ‘So you’re not a wheelman?’

‘Did Fred say I was? He’s always talking my business up,’ Orange chuckled. ‘He’s married to my sister, did you know?’

Blue let out a deep sigh, his fingers tightening around the duffle bag strap.

‘How much?!’ I asked, staring incredulously at the grey intercom box.

‘Twelve-fifty,’ the cashier repeated.

‘For a burger?!’

‘That’s right,’ she crackled. ‘Please drive forward and pay at the window.’

I shook my head in disbelief, but I’d been fantasising about this burger my whole drive home and there were people behind me in the drive-through now.

They had me.

Sighing, I shifted my car back into drive – and the engine abruptly cut out.

‘What the…’ I muttered to myself, twisting the key. The engine wheezed angrily, but didn’t start.

‘Please drive to the next window, sir,’ the box squawked. A car behind me honked.

‘I’m trying!’ I yelled out of the car window, so both of them would hear me. I tried the key again, but this time my car didn’t even bother to tick over.

‘Sir, you’re holding up the other vehicles.’

Sweat began to run down my forehead as I quickly cycled through my options. I could hear my father’s voice, telling me this is what you get for not booking a log book service around Adelaide. I batted him away and went back to trying to come up with a solution.

‘Sir?’

‘Sorry,’ I turned to the speaker, ‘I’m just having some car trouble.’

‘Would you like us to help you?’ the lady on the other end asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re not the first person to break down in our drive-through, sir.’

I laughed. Of course, I wasn’t! They’d be able to deal with this, no problem!

‘For a small fee, a team of our friendly staff will be out there in no time to enact any car repair you may need.’

‘What’s that now?’ I frowned.

The car behind me honked again.

‘Yes or no, sir?’

I vainly tried the engine again. Still nothing.

‘Fine,’ I sighed. ‘Yes, I’ll take the… the car repair.’

‘Excellent. And was that in a meal?’