When Life Gives You Lemons, Squeeze The Juice on Your Dead Car

This is the story of our life after our car suddenly decided to go to the Big Car Garage in the Sky.

In the last year, after buying new brakes; in the last two months, after buying new tires, a new battery, a new fuel pump, new coolant fluid, and new engine oil; and in the last 24 hours, after filling it up with a new [summer gas prices] tank of gas, Car's head gasket blew, and Car went smokily into limbo on its way to the Big Car Garage in the Sky. Luckily, no humans were harmed in the process.

Unluckily, Car was 100 miles away from our home when this happened, and it needed to get to a shop fast. Smoking profusely, and on its way to the nearest repair shop 3 blocks away, a police officer decided to intervene.

Luckily, he just gave a "warning" and the car made it to the repair shop, where we met yet another really helpful person for our situation.

Soooo, we left the car at that guy's parking lot until we could figure out what to do and where to tow it. We started calling dealerships, traders, junk yards, evaluating potential trade-in values, drop-off values, and sell-on-our-own values.

It was like having vultures circling over you trying to eat your car for as little money as possible and trick you into spending the most money possible on your new car.

Still haven't really figured that part out, but we did go buy a new car!