how can some people not care about thier car.... *rant*

yani wow.... no i cant be..., but considering its family she would bought a 4k car instead with alot more issues and be putting herself and my nephew at more risk. i sold her a car for 4k that i could have gotten 7500 or 8 for. it was a favor.

N sperlo : no my ruining my so's life is because i have walked away from my career making us extremely tight financially. that and that i judge my sil. being someone who has been on my own since i was 16 and having had substance abuse problems and been able to move on and become the woman i am today, ill admit i judge her for not being able to make an effort to improve her life. me personally if i was 28 lived at home with my parents with my kid who i didnt know who the father was id wanna shoot myself. she thinks that totally normal.

You were over the top nice, but time to let it go. My SIL gave us a saab 900 years ago (we took care of it - just didn't keep it forever). She has never forgiven us for selling it on to someone else - to the point we no longer see our niece. Family gets weird over this stuff - or it brings out underlying issues. Now we just keep our distance.

DrBoost wrote: To be honest, I've never known anyone who had a car given to them and actually appreciated it. For that reason, my kids are buying every car they will ever own. Maybe, just maybe I'll match their contribution but they are going to work for them.

Unfortunately true. My parents lent a car to my aunt/uncle when their kid was in the hospital. My parents keep everything pretty much showroom new looking as long as they have the car (somehow they can do this for 20 years, they have a car from the 80's that's flawless). They got the car back and it was dirty, full of smoke, and a garage door had been dropped on it. They didn't say a word, no sorry, nothing. OTOH, they don't care for anything they own either. I'm guessing that's why they needed to borrow a car. My brother went through the same stages, my parents gave him a cheap, used (but quite nice) first car, and it was toast in 2 years. Then they gave him a brand new 2000 Celica GT-S, he missed a shift (at redline) and fried the engine at 6k miles. Trade it in on a used Lincoln continental, that lasted 2 months. The beauty of that plan was that my dad wanted the lincoln, and since my bro would screw it up, we'd have a nice family car . Then he was lent a rusty old van. No more freebies.

I on the other hand, do respect a car that was given to me. My parents gave me that same old van when I got to college and my Jetta decided to stop running whenever it felt like it. They thought it would make it through college and then we'd pitch it and get something that wasn't older than me. Now I keep reminding them it's mine and they can't have it back .

Oh I got another one-I know some people who purchased 2 new toyotas recently- one in 07 and one 2011 just recently. They never wash them, and nobody in this family knows how to drive. They seem to assume that hitting stuff is just a part of everyday driving. To be fair, this is in Boston, where everyday driving does actually consist of hitting/being hit by other cars. So far I've avoided it, but I'm uber careful with my only new car ever, and others are careful around my rusty old van . The 2011 still looks nice, despire never having been washed ever. The 2007 camry on the other hand, looks like it's 20 years old. Every corner is damaged, the right rear fender is caved in, the paint is scraped to the metal (ahhh! winter salt!) and a hubcap is missing. They even managed to get scratches across the hood. Getting a car for $4k is one thing (even if said car is much nicer than 4K, but how can someone buy 2 new vehicles for thousands and thousands of dollars, and just let them rot away?! A car is one of the most expensive things people buy, yet they treat them with the least amount of care!!

K sorry, unrelated rant over. Because racecar.

how they treat them terrible is honestly beyond me. girls are the worst(yes i said it) never wash. dont take care of them ect... but for me i gotta be honest. nothing kills my opinion of a beautiful woman more than seeing her get out of a pos. there are ugly beat up cars that you just know are good cars then thier are pos's. as an example i know a girl who i will say is flat out gorgeous... like makes me wonder why i even try gorgeous. but she drives a 2007 civic(not bad right?) car has no front bumper cover and litterly burns 3 qts of oil every 3k. car has 50k on it. and dont even mention interior of said car.... now best part is. she saved for 3 years to buy that car outright cash brand new.

If you're familiar with substance abuse then you know - don't enable this woman any longer. She's an alcoholic, of course she's going to find someone else to blame for her problems.

i always try to be MORE careful of other's vehicles than my own. some of these stories just reinforce my uncomfortableness with lending my vehicles to someone else.

WilberM3 wrote: i always try to be MORE careful of other's vehicles than my own. some of these stories just reinforce my uncomfortableness with lending my vehicles to someone else.

Hey, can I borrow your jeep?

You sound like "good people" and your SIL is just milking her laziness for all its worth. I get the whole wanting whats best for your family thing, but somebody has to teach this mother some responsibility. It just sucks in these cases because the person that cares the most gets to be the victim.

KATYB wrote: actually my partner is the one who has said no more working on it.... my opinion was start charging her 30 an hour labor. but ya no. fact is she is the mother to my nephew so i dont wanna see her in a pos. which is why we sold the car so cheap to her in the first place. we thought if we gave her something nice that maybe she would take care of it. and a mint condition mazda3 with leather and navi we thought was nice guess not.

I'd say that that your parter is right, as well. It's her sister, after all, and yes, he's your nephew, too. But the abuse of your services are also an abuse of her sister, at least your parter may see it like that. If my SIL was doing that to me, I'd think my wife would stand up to her, too.

I think the idea of slowly getting out of the InLaw car repair company business is better in the long run. And you should be able to influence your nephew to be a little more understanding with cars.

I almsot got my niece and nephew rooting for Michigan, when they were born and grew up in Columbus. Anything is possible.

Good luck with it.

DrBoost wrote: To be honest, I've never known anyone who had a car given to them and actually appreciated it. For that reason, my kids are buying every car they will ever own. Maybe, just maybe I'll match their contribution but they are going to work for them.

Take it apart and make them put it back together.

When my wife decided she was tired of the little Dodge Neon Sport that we got as a commuter and were fixing up little by little, she sold it (for a very cheap price) to a down-on-her-luck co-worker with teenage sons. It was a clean little Neon and I had done the brakes, re-ringed it, all new lifters, and had a valve job done when I pulled the head to fix the head gasket. Also had a brand new radiator, timing belt, water pump, etc. etc.

I haven't seen the car, but according to my wife it has been trashed, wrecked, and trashed some more, but that engine is still going strong!

I'm sad for the little car, but at least I know I put the engine together right.

1988RedT2 wrote: When my wife decided she was tired of the little Dodge Neon Sport that we got as a commuter and were fixing up little by little, she sold it (for a very cheap price) to a down-on-her-luck co-worker with teenage sons. It was a clean little Neon and I had done the brakes, re-ringed it, all new lifters, and had a valve job done when I pulled the head to fix the head gasket. Also had a brand new radiator, timing belt, water pump, etc. etc. I haven't seen the car, but according to my wife it has been trashed, wrecked, and trashed some more, but that engine is still going strong! I'm sad for the little car, but at least I know I put the engine together right.

That breaks my heart. I had a 79 Chevy Malibu that was my grandpas, and I worked on it from the age of 13 to 17. The car was in great shape and really clean. I had the car repainted (a non factory blue) and put Z/28 wheels on it. After buying a 3rd car, I had to sell the old girl. I saw it not 3 years later on the road and it made me mad. The paint was ruined, the car was beat to hell and sounded horrible.

I know that you have to let go of things, but I do have a connection with my cars, and I hate to see one of the things that I once cherrished, treated like crap.

In my experience, people who are given big things like houses/cars/etc *almost8 never take care of them at all. I've seen/met one or two exceptions, but not many. They immediately start treating it like it's worth exactly what they paid for it.

The same applies to those given extra good deals for whatever reason (like because they're family).

KATYB wrote: yani wow.... no i cant be..., but considering its family she would bought a 4k car instead with alot more issues and be putting herself and my nephew at more risk.

The thing is, if she doesn't take care of it, she's really not putting him at more risk. It'll be a piece of E36 M3 whether it was worth 4k or 8k when she got it. So while a nice thought, I wouldn't use that as part of the equation, because as far as I can see, it doesn't matter.

Cole_Trickle wrote: I know that you have to let go of things, but I do have a connection with my cars, and I hate to see one of the things that I once cherrished, treated like crap.

Yeah, most people don't have a connection with their cars. For this reason, my parents have made a point of selling their last few used cars to the dealer my brother works for, where they are then sent out of state. My mom doens't want to face the battered remains of something she took care of for 10 years. My brother and I split the extremes of that mindset. He always has an invisible "for sale" sign on every vehicle he owns at all times. I have only gotten rid of one car ever. At my age, he was on his 6th car, having ruined 4 of the 5 previous cars. I'm on my 2nd and 3rd car. Neither is for sale. I would assume his stance is more popular among the general public, and my stance is more popular among GRM forum readers.

tuna55 wrote: $30/HOUR!!! You're insane. My Dad charges $95 at his shop, and that's for people he likes, the rest he refuses to do business with. Granted he's doing some intense stuff some of the time, but if this is someone you don't like, $30/hour is a joke.

Not sure where you live, but $50/hour is a fairly standard rate in TN. $95/hour would get you laughed out of business. Hell, Alloway's hot rod shop doesn't charge anywhere near that much.

Even when I lived in CA (as recently as 05), I never paid more than $75/hour

CA: Bay Area I pay $90 per hour for my general mechanic and $120 for the specialist VW Audi tuners. I do it with a smile too because both of these shops work about twice as fast as other shops I've tried that charge the same...

Here in NJ.. it is close to $100 an hour... if not more depending on what kind of shop it is.

Katy, My little sis is the same way. When I was little, my family had nothing but the roof over our head. My Father had just gotten a medical discharge from the Navy and it seemed the government would find EVERY excuse they could not to pay my father his disability pay.

By the time my Sister rolled around (She is 10 years younger) my Father had managed to graduate College and was off of disability and making good money. I worked for everything, she got everything free....

Guess who's not living with the parents still?

ok i wanna go off topic here for a sec.. transmission oil in the crank and run it for an hour.. please educate me on this...

BARNCA wrote: ok i wanna go off topic here for a sec.. transmission oil in the crank and run it for an hour.. please educate me on this...

This deserves a seperate thread.

Katy's not a dude... she's one of us

Lesley wrote: Katy's not a dude... she's one of us

katy is right up there with the great lesley, and the all knowing all seeing concrete boss.

I learned a long time ago to not sell cars to family. I sold my BIL two cars in a span of three months. An 87 Town Car, and a 88 626. Both cars were in great shape. Clean, good running and well cared for. In less than a year, both were trashed. Interiors destroyed by food stains and trash. The 626 engine was blown from lack of oil. It had a main seal that leaked a quart every 3k miles. The Town Car was wrecked and transmission blown from sheer abuse. Tranny drops to make is spin the tires are kind of hard on them. I had basically given him the cars for a token payment. He and his wife destroyed them and somehow it was my fault. They were pissed because I wouldn't fix them. I was kind of pissed because of their stupidity. Never again, I'll just keep them. As a matter of fact I haven't sold a car since, other than the 57 Chevy, and it went out of state.

Katy, just cut them off. They don't get any better. The BIL has destroyed four cars since then. They'll never change.

Trapsp33d wrote: the statement still stands

Well, except the "sir" part...