Tag: Jetta

Volkswagen Jetta 05/2000 – 01/2018

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The Saturday before last (1/20) I said goodbye to the Jetta when we brought it to the DMV and had everything transferred into Joe’s daughter’s name. I’m not gonna lie – I’m going to miss that car. I know it was time to upgrade but I loved how it accelerated and it had the best heated seats. My new car only has low and high. Low seems a bit too low and high is too hot. Such is the life of an overly sensitive person such as myself. I didn’t cry seeing the car go, though. Maybe it helped having it sit out in the driveway for the past few months while I got used to my new car. I dunno. I try not to think about it too much because I do get attached to inanimate objects I’ve owned for a very long time and that Jetta was like giving birth to a baby and watching it go off to college. Yikes!

I can already tell that I won’t be keeping my Crosstrek nearly as long because I really HATE how it does that jerky movement when you’re slowing down. It’s so stupid and annoying and I’m really just cranky in general today so I was feeling sorry for myself about how I’m not as thrilled about the car like I was initially. It probably didn’t help that I messed up the passenger side mirror recently when I hit the shelving unit pulling into the garage. Now there’s some paint missing on the mirror and the plastic molding on the wheel well is jacked up. I was so worried about someone else messing up my car and I did it myself. FML

Thanksgiving Staycation

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I took the week of Thanksgiving off from work, and since I normally only work three days, I only had to use 2 vacation days to do so.

I was all set to stop at the library Thursday (11/16) after work (I drive right past it daily) but before I reached it my car gave a warning that my back right tire pressure was much lower than the rest of the tires so I headed straight home instead.

Joe was out walking Wookie and I stopped to tell him what happened. That’s when we found a screw in the tire. We immediately took the car to Discount Tire to see what they could do. They suggested since the car was so new (less than 300 miles on it) that we call the dealership and see what they would do for us. The answer to that – absolutely nothing. Typical. I didn’t even write about how my salesperson harassed the hell out of me recently for not giving them perfect scores on the survey Subaru sent me even though they did nothing to deserve them. I’m done with that dealership and will take the car elsewhere when it needs service.

Anyway, once we informed our Discount Tire rep how unhelpful the dealership was being he suggested we walk over to Portillo’s and have dinner while they took a look at the tire since there was a pretty long wait (hour and a half it turned out). Luckily, despite the screw being at an angle it missed the sidewall and they were able to patch it. They didn’t even charge us. Now that is good customer service! This isn’t the first time they’ve repaired a tire for free – I don’t know how they make money. I was just relieved I wouldn’t have to fork over $100 and come back the next day to buy an identical tire (since they didn’t have mine in stock).

We finally made it to the library on Friday (11/17) after Joe got home. I got a handful of books and we both got CDs. Then we headed to Ace Hardware so Joe could pick up a shop-vac they had on sale since his died over the summer. It was his dad’s so it was pretty old. From there we stopped at the cleaners so I could have them fix the seam on my dress pants which came apart. The woman who does the tailoring happened to be available and fixed them right there in less than five minutes. She’s the best and we always come to her when we need clothing repaired. We picked up a pizza from Lou Malnati’s next door and brought it home for dinner.

The weather was cold and rainy on Saturday (11/18) so we didn’t do much after our two hour shopping trip at Target. This time of year they always have a deal where you get a $10 gift card when you spend $50 on groceries so we had to take advantage of that. We picked up a few Christmas presents for Joe’s kids as well.

Sunday (11/19) we headed over to IKEA (to return a bath mat) and Bed Bath and Beyond (to return the outfit Wookie didn’t like). It was pretty crappy outside so all I wanted to do was go home and veg afterward. Joe made chicken and dumplings in the crockpot for dinner which came out delicious.

Monday (11/20) was just my regular upstairs cleaning day, but Tuesday (11/21) I had an endoscopy to check my esophagus since I have frequent acid reflux. My doctor was running behind schedule so we waited about an hour longer than normal. The procedure itself is only 10-15 minutes but man they must have used a particularly strong sedative because I don’t remember the doctor coming to speak to us in recovery AT ALL and I kept telling Joe the same stuff repeatedly throughout the day. I also took a nap when we got home and went to bed early that night.

Any procedures I’ve had done in the past 15 years or so have always been at the same hospital but my doctor is in a different network so we went to a surgery center instead. Luckily it was very modern and all the staff were quite nice and caring. The only snafu I ran into was when they gave me a bell to ring when I was prepped but still waiting to be taking into the procedure room and no one could hear me. When the nurse came back to get me I explained I had been ringing it because I needed to urinate and she was very apologetic. I hate how when I’m cold and nervous I have to pee like crazy even though I hadn’t drank anything since 6 am (and at this point it was around 11:30 am). Also, unlike the hospital they don’t let family members hang out with you until right before the procedure so I was freezing, lying in this bed all alone attached to an IV, and really had to pee. So that sucked. My discharge paperwork says I have a small hiatal hernia (which I already knew from the last time I had this procedure) and esophagitis (which is irritation or inflammation of the esophagus). They took a biopsy so I’ll know more in a week or so.

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Christmas Cleanup, Car Troubles, and My Aunt

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The Christmas decorations have been taken down and packed away. Most of them, anyway. Joe has been working on my car since 10 am so the tree itself is still up, as are two things that too high up for me to reach. Once he’s done with the car he’ll be taking that stuff down so I can put everything away and we can go back to having a non-cluttered house.

We also have some errands to run but at this rate I’m guessing they will have to be put off for another day. We need to pick up some sweaters we dropped off at a local tailor to sew, get gas for my car, and visit the library. I’ll probably be hitting up the library tomorrow since it closes in less than an hour and Joe is just now finishing up my car. I’m sure he’d like a shower and something to eat; I know I would!

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day too because I need to swing by the sleep center to pick up the sleep study equipment (assuming my doctor’s office faxed over the info and the center is able to get insurance approval quickly). Plus, once Joe gets home from work we have to head out to Bridgeview to attend my aunt’s wake. Apparently she had been in the hospital for awhile but no one had informed my dad so neither of us knew. She passed away the day after Christmas. It’s sad to think she died all alone without any family around. She’s the only aunt on my dad’s side that I kept in touch with.

Edited to Add – It turns out my aunt wasn’t sick in the hospital, my dad just didn’t relay the information accurately. She actually spent time with family every weekend, and the day after Christmas she collapsed, was rushed to the hospital, and couldn’t be revived.

Spending moolah & my leaky Jetta

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We are bleeding money over here!

I decided to go ahead and buy my parents a computer for Christmas this year and it’s turned into a bit of a hassle. I ordered an ASUS from NewEgg at the beginning of the month. It arrived a week later but I waited a week to unpack it so I could configure it, and then learned the damn thing wouldn’t even turn on! It was like the power button wasn’t actually connecting with anything inside the case. I would have opened it to investigate but that would void the warranty so instead I sent it back to NewEgg for a refund.

We ended up buying a Dell from Staples last Sunday instead. It was about $27 more since we had to pay tax, but has 2.5x the memory and the hard drive is twice the size, so it ended up being a great deal once the associate forced the system to give us the price advertised in the sales ad. Initially, he seriously asked me if I was ok paying $50 more than the price in the ad since the computer was giving him trouble. I told him absolutely not and that he should get a manager to give us the correct price, which he did. We had to have it shipped to our house since none of the computers in the ad were actually available in store. Hmmm… and you wonder why these office stores are having a rough time financially. Anyway, at least the new computer works. I installed Firefox and a bazillion Windows updates on it. Now I just need to install TeamViewer and test that it works with our PC so we can help them remotely when issues arise.

This week we spent money buying gift cards with bonuses to be used during the coming year. We bought:

Two $10 Savers gift certificates and received a free $5 certificate that is good through January 10th.

One $25 Buona Beef gift card and received a free $5 certificate that is good through the end of February.

One $100 Lou Malnati’s gift card and received a free $25 gift certificate that is good through the end of June.

Two $25 Culver’s gift cards and received two free value basket coupons that are good through February 22nd.

So in all we spent $195 but got approximately $53 worth of freebies which equates to a 27% discount at places we would have spent money at throughout the year anyway. I call that a win-win! The challenge for some might be to use those certificates before they expire (something each establishment is counting on), but I just added reminders to an app on my phone so we don’t forget.

We also hit up Omaha Steaks to use up the gift cards I had accumulated. We got $100 of food for $52 out of pocket. Included in our assortment are some steaks and pork chops I’ve never tried before, so I’m looking forward to that. If you would have asked me what I thought of Omaha Steaks a few years ago I would have told you they sound overpriced and I’d never buy anything of theirs, but after years of getting gift cards for Christmas for their products, I think overall they’re a pretty good value. If you think about what you’d spend on a nice steak dinner at a restaurant, they are actually more affordable. We really enjoy their burgers, hot dogs, and Italian sausages too. The only thing I’ve tried that I would caution against are their chicken cordon blue bites. They are just terrible! I actually ended up throwing away half of them. My mom gets some from Market Day that are eons better.

During all our running around today, Joe noticed my car was leaking fluid, so we brought it to the local dealership for a diagnosis. They told us the thermostat needs to be replaced and they wanted nearly $700 to do it. Joe told them no thanks, ordered the part from AutoZone, and will replace it himself which will save us over $500 even after paying the dealership $66 to look at the car. I guess it’s a good thing that a) I’m only working two days next week and b) my commute is so short (2.5 miles each way) I can safely drive the car before it’s fixed since it’s not leaking enough coolant to cause the engine to overheat.

I’ll be glad when my birthday comes and goes in early January since then we’ll be done with the spending for awhile!

Car Woes

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It might be time to say goodbye to my beloved Jetta which is 13 years old. Lately we’ve been having to dump more and more money into it that it’s not worth it anymore. This week the airbag light came on so we took it to the dealership which found a slew of things wrong with my car. The front airbag and harness needs to be replaced at the tune of $1100, the driver’s side lock is failing which will cost $500 to replace or eventually I won’t be able to lock my car, and there are other expensive repairs and maintenance work that needs to be done that will well exceed the blue book value of the car.

As it stands now I’ve been shopping online to get an idea of which cars I may be interested in so that we can go on some test drives Saturday. My choice of vehicles is a bit narrow thanks to my current must-haves which include heated front seats (can’t live without those now) and a price tag that doesn’t exceed $23k as cars are a huge waste of money and it sickens me to even pay that much. Also, I want 0% financing or forget it. My credit is excellent so I’m confident I’ll get it if anyone wants to actually sell me a car since there’s no way in hell I’m paying interest on one.

Part of me is pretty excited about the prospect of getting a shiny new car. Plus all the models I’ve been eyeing integrate the stereo with an iPod which is awesome (CD player? Who needs one of those these days? I haven’t used my 6-disc changer in years).

The other part of me is sad to be parting with my baby. My car handles like a champ, the engine packs a punch, and it still looks pretty damn fine for its age. I looked at a 2013 Jetta today but I’m not sure I care for the style now that they changed the exterior so much. Ironically, it bugs me how much the interior has remained by and large the same. I’m thinking if I have to get a new car why not get something different than what I’ve owned the past 13 years? Plus I’d prefer a car that isn’t so pricey to maintain and gets better gas mileage.

As it stands now, and keep in mind I’ve been researching for all of a couple of hours (another thing that irks me – I don’t have the time to do massive research like I normally would as I wasn’t planning on getting a new car anytime soon but have no choice now that my car doesn’t have a functioning airbag and I don’t want to spend any more money on it), the cars I’m interested in are the Subaru Impreza, the Kia Rio, and the Chevy Sonic. All of them get better gas mileage than my Jetta (including a new 2013 Jetta) which is fantastic, although I’m still keeping the 2013 Jetta in my back pocket, so to speak, in case I can’t find anything else I like.

Ugh, I just hate spending money! I’d much rather be saving it.