New member from SW Michigan
06-21-2013, 12:25 AM
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Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Michigan
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New member from SW Michigan Hey guys. I've posted a few questions before but haven't formally introduced myself. I own a white 1998 trans am. I've had the car for a little over a year now. It's been a pretty...how shall I put it?...interesting year? I bought the car in April of 2012 for $5000. The car is a non-ws6 A4 and had 93,xxx miles on it when I bought it. Not a bad deal if you ask me. I'm friends with the guy who sold it to me. I saw his TA for the first time back in '09 or '10. I told him that it's been my dream to own a late-model trans am since they were first introduced when I was seven years old (I'm 22...turning 23 here in a few weeks.) A couple years later, he told me that he was selling the car to pay for an engagement ring and that he'd bring it by sometime to let me drive it, knowing that I've always wanted one. Being a broke college student, I obviously didn't have money up front to pay for the car, so I figured I'd have my one day driving it and that would be that. About two hours into my 'joyride', I just had to call my mom and show her this car because I knew she'd get geeked over it too (her step-dad was a big corvette collector). She really liked it and I jokingly said 'So...you wanna give me a loan to buy it?' and laughed. She sighed and said 'go ask your dad.' I had one of those 'wait...really?' moments, but before I could really question it I was back on the road driving to my dad's workplace. Long story short, they eventually decided to help me buy the car, and a month later it was sitting in my driveway. So that's where my story begins.
Now of course, being a 21 year old guy and former pizza boy, I drove this car like I stole it for the first week or two that I had it. Eventually, I ended up stranded on the side of the road, and after a long wait for the tow truck and a day waiting to hear from the shop, I found out that I had fried the fuel pump. No big deal...just don't get to have the car for a week. Well I get the car back from the shop and within the first few hours of having it back, I get my first speeding ticket in this car (though, I'm honestly surprised it took me that long...haha). A week later, the water pump goes. I've spent a decent amount of time under the hood of my 97 grand am, so I figure I'll just buy the part and replace it myself. So I had the car parked for a week before I decided to take it out to a former co-workers house to show it off a little. We spend the day outside, detailing the TA and his car. At some point during the day I ran to a gas station to get some drinks, and on the way cut through the parking lot of the pizza hut I used to work at. My former manager was outside leaning against his car on break (an '02ish mustang, fwiw) and we made plans to meet up at the bar when he got out.
He gave me a call around 11:20 and told me he was out. So I left the apartment I was hanging out at and started driving to the bar. While I was sitting at a stoplight, the worst possible thing imaginable happened. I was waiting to turn left at a light and someone in a ford focus approached the light from my left. He was turning right (so he was going towards where I was coming from, and I was going towards where he was coming from), and somehow overshot the turn and hit me head on. I wasn't hurt, but my bird got banged up pretty bad. My girl was in the car behind me and when the focus pulled to the side of the road she ran over to make sure we were both ok. She told me that as soon as he rolled his window down, she was overwhelmed by the smell of alcohol. Of course, I called the police, gave them my location, gave them his license plate number, and did everything in my power to not beat the almighty crap out of the dude. When the police finally arrived, they talked to me, the other witnesses, and the guy who hit me separately. He could barely stand up straight when they were talking to him. Eventually, they gave him a sobriety test and carted him off to the county jail. The police report I received said he had a BAC of .20, well above Michigan's .08 limit.
Now, I didn't have collision coverage on my car...because what's the point in paying full coverage on a car that I only drive four or five times a month? Well, insurance in Michigan is what is called 'no-fault' insurance. This means that it doesn't matter who is at fault in the accident, each party pays for their own repairs. You would think that in the case of someone being hit by an intoxicated driver there would be exceptions. Turns out there aren't. So I basically got screwed. My car got smashed, I got a measly $500 from the insurance company, and the estimates I received ranged from $3100 up to $6500. A normal person would have cut their losses, scrapped or parted out the car, and moved on. Me being me, I said 'screw that' and decided I wanted to fix it. So I spent the next ten months working 30-40 hours a week, making only $7.75 an hour, on top of going to school full time. I promised myself I would have the car fixed within a year of getting hit.
By early April of this year, I finally had saved up around $4700. I went around and got more estimates and ultimately settled on a shop...mostly because the guy who gave me the estimate loved my car and said that he really wanted to see it back on the road. I told him I was willing to throw a decent amount of money at the car to fix it, but didn't want to stray too far over $4k. It took us a good amount of time to track down parts...we had to go with a fiberglass hood, but managed to find an OE bumper. It took a good month or so to get the parts and have the work done, but ultimately I was extremely happy with the results. When I picked up the car, it was the happiest day of my life.. like I was buying my first trans am all over again.
After I picked it up, I spent a couple days changing my oil and plugs, flushing the radiator and block and changing the coolant over to yellow prestone, and installed a new water pump, tstat, ac belt, and accessory belt. I also had the body shop do the CETA mod to my back bumper while they had it. As of now, the car is completely stock other than the CETA mod and the aftermarket WS6 hood, but once my financial situation recovers after dropping over $4k to fix it (along with $2.5k to drop a new engine in the GA) I'll be putting money into making it faster.
Pics in the following posts. Sorry for the long post...thanks for reading if you made it this far :p.
Now of course, being a 21 year old guy and former pizza boy, I drove this car like I stole it for the first week or two that I had it. Eventually, I ended up stranded on the side of the road, and after a long wait for the tow truck and a day waiting to hear from the shop, I found out that I had fried the fuel pump. No big deal...just don't get to have the car for a week. Well I get the car back from the shop and within the first few hours of having it back, I get my first speeding ticket in this car (though, I'm honestly surprised it took me that long...haha). A week later, the water pump goes. I've spent a decent amount of time under the hood of my 97 grand am, so I figure I'll just buy the part and replace it myself. So I had the car parked for a week before I decided to take it out to a former co-workers house to show it off a little. We spend the day outside, detailing the TA and his car. At some point during the day I ran to a gas station to get some drinks, and on the way cut through the parking lot of the pizza hut I used to work at. My former manager was outside leaning against his car on break (an '02ish mustang, fwiw) and we made plans to meet up at the bar when he got out.
He gave me a call around 11:20 and told me he was out. So I left the apartment I was hanging out at and started driving to the bar. While I was sitting at a stoplight, the worst possible thing imaginable happened. I was waiting to turn left at a light and someone in a ford focus approached the light from my left. He was turning right (so he was going towards where I was coming from, and I was going towards where he was coming from), and somehow overshot the turn and hit me head on. I wasn't hurt, but my bird got banged up pretty bad. My girl was in the car behind me and when the focus pulled to the side of the road she ran over to make sure we were both ok. She told me that as soon as he rolled his window down, she was overwhelmed by the smell of alcohol. Of course, I called the police, gave them my location, gave them his license plate number, and did everything in my power to not beat the almighty crap out of the dude. When the police finally arrived, they talked to me, the other witnesses, and the guy who hit me separately. He could barely stand up straight when they were talking to him. Eventually, they gave him a sobriety test and carted him off to the county jail. The police report I received said he had a BAC of .20, well above Michigan's .08 limit.
Now, I didn't have collision coverage on my car...because what's the point in paying full coverage on a car that I only drive four or five times a month? Well, insurance in Michigan is what is called 'no-fault' insurance. This means that it doesn't matter who is at fault in the accident, each party pays for their own repairs. You would think that in the case of someone being hit by an intoxicated driver there would be exceptions. Turns out there aren't. So I basically got screwed. My car got smashed, I got a measly $500 from the insurance company, and the estimates I received ranged from $3100 up to $6500. A normal person would have cut their losses, scrapped or parted out the car, and moved on. Me being me, I said 'screw that' and decided I wanted to fix it. So I spent the next ten months working 30-40 hours a week, making only $7.75 an hour, on top of going to school full time. I promised myself I would have the car fixed within a year of getting hit.
By early April of this year, I finally had saved up around $4700. I went around and got more estimates and ultimately settled on a shop...mostly because the guy who gave me the estimate loved my car and said that he really wanted to see it back on the road. I told him I was willing to throw a decent amount of money at the car to fix it, but didn't want to stray too far over $4k. It took us a good amount of time to track down parts...we had to go with a fiberglass hood, but managed to find an OE bumper. It took a good month or so to get the parts and have the work done, but ultimately I was extremely happy with the results. When I picked up the car, it was the happiest day of my life.. like I was buying my first trans am all over again.
After I picked it up, I spent a couple days changing my oil and plugs, flushing the radiator and block and changing the coolant over to yellow prestone, and installed a new water pump, tstat, ac belt, and accessory belt. I also had the body shop do the CETA mod to my back bumper while they had it. As of now, the car is completely stock other than the CETA mod and the aftermarket WS6 hood, but once my financial situation recovers after dropping over $4k to fix it (along with $2.5k to drop a new engine in the GA) I'll be putting money into making it faster.
Pics in the following posts. Sorry for the long post...thanks for reading if you made it this far :p.
Last edited by shambooki; 06-21-2013 at 01:18 AM.
