Death of a Car

I suppose if you don't have a good story, you fade quietly into the night and no one remembers you.  Well, our Honda accord must have had this in mind over the last few weeks, because it decided to go out in a blaze of fury. So if you realize one day that you want to go out with a bang (and you're a car) just follow these simple steps:

Step 1:  Quietly, before anyone notices, grind down your brakes so far that you dig groves into your rotors, accompanied by a sickening grinding noise anytime someone tries to stop.  Normally, they could just replace the rotors, but because of your model year, they need a special press, and so you get a temporary set of brake pads wearing unev

enly on old, scratched up rotors.

Step 2:  Wait a while, under the radar, and then, during a road trip to Chicago, start leaking coolant from the Radiator.  When the coolant is gone, overheat, and blow your head gasket.  That'll show'em.

Step 3:  So now, you've got inconsistent compression, so you

 don't accelerate very well off the line, but don't worry, they'll figure out that the trick is to throw you into neutral every time you come to a stop, and then rev you up to about 3,000 rpms and kick it into drive, just to get you going.   And then, just when they think you might last a few more weeks...

Step 4:  The Alternator.  Just don't charge the battery anymore.  

Why bother? Who needs a radio, speedometer, or blinkers?  If you time it just right, everything will kill while you're driving home on 94 in the left lane at about 65-70 mph.  As you cruise blindly through a sea of speeding angry drivers (best if in the pouring rain) with no lights or blinkers, you'll know that you'll never be forgotten.

If you follow these steps and you're lucky, you'll sputter to a stop about a half mile from your exit, and your owners will be forced to tow you home behind their other (nice) car.  That's what our 

car did.  And then, we had quite the experience towing it behind our other car back to our driveway.  There's nothing quite like watching for slack between the car you're in and the car in front of you, knowing that if the rope touches the ground you might get the chance to total your good car using your bad car as the blunt object.

And so now the search for a new car begins.