7 times the Car Wizard gave up on cars...
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
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#VINwiki #carwizard #mechanic
Getting rid of a car you didn't need at the time because it was draining you financially was absolutely the right call to make!
Note to self, hang around this guys garage and wait for a good deal.
Just as long as he doesn't give up on Tyler's Bugatti...we need more cheap service options!
Just can’t leave it overnight.
Insurance company entered the chat.
Ed.i specialize in taking care of exotic cars. i can save you money on maintaining your fleet! sick of shops crazy markups..Tell Hoovie he needs me and you get special pricing haha!
Cheap and Bugatti will never be in the same sentence other than dreaming lol 😂
Have Wizard make you up some wheel spacer adapters.
It wasn't the dumbest idea to get rid of the car as a teen if you can barely afford it because you spend almost the entire budget on it.
Well the only time you can spend your whole budget like that is when you're a teen and your parents will feed clothe and house you.
I was thinking the same thing. He obviously was able to bike to school.
Why not pocket the cash you save? Money is powerful at that age
He could of started investing early, although I guess he maybe didn’t
I went though the same thing. I saved for years to buy a 89 Toyota pickup at age 15 and then it basically sat there for the next 2 years as I only worked in the summer and couldn’t afford car insurance or gas the other 9 months I wasn’t earning.
I know grown adults in their 30s who still can't afford their own cars and use their credit card and loans to pay for it. When you are poor, your car is your most expensive child, even when you have to live in it
@SplitScreamOFFICIAL I paid cash for a brand new Lexus LS 15 years ago. Paid with a yearly bonus. Best decision ever. Most reliable car I've ever owned.
Many years ago billionaire, Warren Buffett was asked about how he had become so wealthy, and his response was basically by making good decisions. The interviewer followed up, asking about how he had made good decisions and his reply was by making lots of bad ones before that. Great job, Wizard.
If you believe that, you are still drinking the kool-aid. Have a good day
@ Read more-comment on TH-cam less.
Yep. Warren even told us how he got rich : compounding. Stacking assets, a few dollars at a time till it adds up to control of that asset.
@willmtaylor Nobody can make that many good investment decisions without insider info. Even WB would tell you that. That's why he suggests that us peasants stick with ETFs.
I thought you were going to say how he negotiated a discount on his Cadillac XTS.
When Car Wizard has said many times he has no sentimental attachment to vehicles. He really means he has no sentimental attachment to vehicles.
To be a mechanic, one must learn to hate every vehicle they touch..
@@jwalster9412 Will keep in mind. I think I'm there with my 07 GMC Sierra 1500 4x4
Mechanics just become sick of seeing and fixing cars. They just treat every car like a piece of shit
@@davidpick1076I've learned to make sure that as a mechanic, my own car is reliable and fixed with OEM parts whenever possible in order to avoid working on it for as long as possible. Project cars are a different story, those always need something to be done/ modified/ upgraded for whatever reason lol
He’s always like a mile away from his house before he’s like I’m done haha
Dave is a reformed (mostly I think) rageaholic. Dude had some serious anger \ rage issues.
5:45 he said it! RAAAAGE! 😂😂😂
Yeah, that explains him just ditching the cars and of course he doesn't want to pay someone else to look at it/fix it.
I can do a lot of my own stuff now, but I completely get the frustration when you are younger and the car just eats all your money only to fail later on. Hated cars until like 3.5 years ago at 35 when I got into niche older Toyotas and taught myself to do stuff. Even still I go to the mechanic a lot because there are jobs that just are not worth the time and frustration/unknown.
Now I can see why so many good mechanics left his garage.
@@alexandrecouture2462 yes. And personally, I often feel for the Mrs. She has to be subject to that 24\7 basically.
Yeah I am having this issue with my parents 2002 Honda Odyssey ex engine oil drained out completely and the leak is unknown thinking it's VTEC solenoid or oil pan gasket gave up.
Honestly, that story about getting rid of a car when you were 15 really resonated with me on a personal lever and I feel like it could easily be used as an analogy for alot of other things in life. There are alot of people out there who could be financially well off if they just stop letting their vices and poor spending habits take control over them and force them to live paycheck to paycheck.
Wizard is one of the few people that are smart with their money and dumb with their money at the same time. Smart with his money in that he understood the true daily cost of a car to his budget but dumb with his money to be dumping cars that could have been fixed to spend more money on buying another car. At the time, that Rabbit didn't make it to the junkyard. They replaced the fuel pump and sold it for a very tasty profit.
the fuseboxes under the windshield got rained on and made big problems too
I’m on the same page with you Car Wizard. As an apprentice I bought a 1966 Morris Mini Deluxe. It was a POS, but I owned a car. I bought a workshop manual and taught myself how to fix cars. It was my first car and I still own it nearly 40 years later. Never give up. The first new car I ever bought was a 2001 Nissan Pathfinder. What a great car. We took it camping and on the beach. The front seats were so comfortable. I also miss that car. Eventually the transmission was sketchy, so traded it for a Toyota Prado. I liked the Pathfinder more. I never noticed your impatience in your videos on cars. Must have been the military taking its toll. Glad you are out of it and self dependent. Thanks for your knowledge.
Summer of 2008 the gas prices broke me. I had to sell my first car a 65' Oldsmobile Cutlass. As gas hit $4.00 a gallon I was making $9 an hour.
I remember diesel pickups even Dodges with Cummins were going so cheap as the auctions and dealer lots were flooded with used trucks.
My brother bought a V8 Nissan Titan (he was only like 19) then gas prices doubled and he had to sell it... $100 and sometimes it wouldn't even fill the tank. Not good at that age!
2008 broke a lot of people. I knew of a relative who had to sell his E39 5 series bmw and went from living like a king to live in a small flat with a shitty car. It hit him like a truck
just think people making 3x as much today voted for fascists because it was over $3 in recent years lmao
Two times I had to get rid of a car, both could have lasted longer with ongoing repairs. What I realized is how utterly emotionally attached I become to my cars. I think the more you work on your car and bring it back to life, the more you bond with it -- I'm speaking as a person with limited income, not someone who can buy what he wants and have others make all the repairs. Anyhow, when it came time to leave the car and walk away, it felt like the car looked to me to save it and to not abandon it. I am old now and realize it's just a car and just life, but to this day I feel guilty. So strange.
this dude is so calm and speaks the most quality information out of any automotive channel on youtube fr
It seems like every young marine/soldier has a camaro or mustang.
Those enlistment bonuses
Because it's testosterone on wheels. V8 engine and lots of horsepower.
I've known a few with a Trans Am. Or they have no muscle car due to a very expensive BM
I have a 50+ year old friend that still does this. He'll buy something, then find out that it's unreliable, wrong for him, or not what he thought it was, and dump it. I've made a lot of money flipping his vehicles. One of the funniest/saddest was three Seadoos that he drove 1200 miles to bring home, then found out that none of them were what he thought they were. As we were looking at them he said "they're dead to me" and walked back in the house. I made almost $3k off of them.
I bought a 1976 f-100 Ranger with the intention of making it a daily driver for $300. Body was decent, some rust here and there. Transmission only had second gear and reverse. Wiring was a mess with rats nests everywhere and lots of electrical gremlins, whole interior was spray painted and some weird black foam was placed on the floor in place of the carpet. Had aftermarket exhaust but it was falling off, the stretched tires were loosing air constantly.
Looking back all I would have needed to do is replace some wires that were improperly done, fix a vacuum line to the transmission, give the engine a tuneup, fix the broken exhaust, replace the clearly wrong size tires, and I would have had a decent daily driver. As a teen I wasn't very mechanically inclined ether so all I seen was a money pit.
We used to go ATC (yes, three wheelers) with friends. One had a 250r that was unreliable at best. He was so angry with it that he wanted to leave it in the desert. Another friend bought it for $25 and took it home. It was exchanged between different people over a couple of years, but I don't think it ever ran right.
Wizard!! Always glad to see you on to start the day. I've only given up on 1 car, a volvo v50 t5 that had water in the interior and electrical gremlins.
Oh man this is hilarious! I have a hard time believing Wizard had such little patience! I imagine Mrs Wizard helped with that.
Hind site is 20/20. If I knew then what I know today. This is why I get pissed at people whom refuse to let the younger generation onto tips, tricks and idea about how to trouble shoot or fix anything. Im not just talking cars. A house, plumbing, electrical anything. It needs to be passed down first hand as well as books and the miracle of the internet!!!!
this is how i felt recently, my 2016 ford escape 1.6L was constantly leaking oil i just put 4k into it, even after getting it back from turbo replacement and and a valve cover gasket it was still leaking and not wanting to deal with a ford service department ever again, i kinda just dusted my hands, wiped off as much oil as i can, cleaned the inside, gave it a hug and then took it to the local toyota dealer and now im in a 2025 corolla le. i’ll miss that car
That pathfinder story hurt me, I love the second gen pathfinder’s and the moment he mentioned the deathwobble I knew exactly what he had to replace and instead he got rid of it. They are such great cheap and fairly capable off road vehicles
I luv the first gen, even though the exhaust manifolds are bunk...
@ I’ve had two first gens and both of them had the exhaust break at the y pipe and caught my carpet under my foot on fire 😂 will probably still get another one in the future
I've had my R50 since 2012 and it's been pretty good, especially in the snow. I've let it get pretty bad but I'm starting to put money into it to make it nicer. Getting kinda rusty underneath though
Have you ever given up on a car?
I gave up on my 94 GMC sierra after hitting a pothole and destroyed a radiator hose. It already had no power steering and a brake leak so I decided to let it go. I fucking miss that truck now lol😂
Yes. A 1997 Toyota Camry. A pile of crap.
2007 alfa romeo 159 2.2jts piece of crap
1984 VOLVO next person got it running with tapping on the gas filter. He was an insurance adjuster and only would buy Volvos.
Yes in 1981, a 1965 ford mustang, I was drunk and I went up a curb and destroyed the DS suspension. so I walked away and sold it for $200 to a friend’s brother. 😢
David has to handle Tyler, I'm really convinced that Wizard is top 10 when it comes to patience.
Recently.
He used to be a rageaholic.
The Wizard also has a side job as The Buddha.
Zen patience
At 15 I bought a Beautiful 63 Sunbeam Alpine. Lifters started clacking, Dad said “just tighten the lifters down until in quiets down” 2 weeks later engine gave up. Crank bearings were flat from my adjustment. Put all removed parts in the car called junkyard…..
At 15, my brother bought a Hillman. He used to sing "Wasted Days and waisted Nights" and "Rust in the Wind" while he worked on it. He never did get it to run. We towed it to the scrap yard and left it outside the gate.
For someone who is so legendary in the mechanic's space, he seems to have a tendency to just walk off from a lot of cars that didn't need much work. I'm honestly disappointed that these stories weren't crazier.
I'm a high school teacher and giving up a car for monetary reasons as a 15 year old shows some real restraint and wisdom.
Getting rid of the escort was a mature move! I wish I had that discipline with my first car lol
My 1st car was 79 camaro (around 2000) and i learned the brakes wouldnt stop that boat going over 100 mph. I was literally trying to pry on the steering wheel to get more leverage on the brake . Somehow made a rught turn at the stol sign and missed the few cars near me . Went sideways in the opposite ditch and back across the road into my ditch before getting it pointed straight. I only took a wooden stake about middle of passenger door (used the to hold up plastic in a V shape after planting grass) . And the reason i didnt lift off the gas till coming up on stop sign , just got into a fight with stepdad (i was 16) and he grabbed a 12 gauge and basically had it resting on my nose. After he didint pull the trigger i crawled out my window and buried my foot until i tried to stop . My neighbor asked me the next day at school if that was me , cause he didnt know how i missed one car (was literally across the road at that stop sign when it happened)
0:45 let me save everyone time. He gets rid of nearly every car on this list while he was about a mile from home because had very little patience and didn’t know much about cars at the time
The story about you being a teenager and deciding to sell your car. Should have been said on TED Talks or something. It really is something alot people need to hear. It's sad how most people let cars,houses, things control their life
VinWiki X Car Wizard is the collab I didn’t know that I wanted, but absolutely love.
Same!
12:45 When I was a teenager I made the same choice to not drive after saving up and spending 4k on an 89 Toyota pickup when I was 15, I just basically let it sit there for the next 2 years and I rode my bicycle to work because the insurance and gas was so much an my parents didn’t help with it at all. It was the late 90’s.
Why didn't you just sell it and get a moped or something more fuel efficient?
@ I actually enjoyed riding my bike a lot so I rode my bike to work and took the school bus to school. I was a bike racer and needed the training miles anyway. I knew the cash flow issues would resolve in time, and they did when minimum wage raised from 4.25 to 7.50. I was very patient.
We make dumb and stupid mistakes when we are young, but we learned from that and become wise when we're older.
I’ve owned lots of cars. Bad one was an 03 Malibu. Nice looking,black, mag wheels (understated), rear spoiler, tan pleather interior, NA V6-really peppy, cold A/C. Brakes went out real quick, as did water pump; head gasket eaten away by GM coolant so coolant mixed with oil, warped head gasket. Other than reliability it was a nice ride.
Kia RIO: gawd, sold that POS after not owning it very long.
My parents 1976 Ford Fairmont station wagon in Ford Racing Calf-dropping Yellow. Top speed 55mph, a total rattle trap, wandered all over the road.
I can understand where he is coming from, but I don't like how he is so Impatient. Not the guy I would trust my car to or even be friends with
6:36 Imagine being able to buy another car after just waiting for a paycheck
Such great tales; if only our current selves could talk to our past selves...coulda woulda shouda...Car wizard you have come a long way. Thanks for sharing.
This dude is the reason why they ask on job applications if youre the kind of person to finish what you started or not
Coming from someone who just sold a car they didn't need for profit, you made the right choice. There's more to life than car payments!
lol, i bought a 500$ car at 19 and repaired it for 8 years by now.
How people are different.
Takes some time to fix it every other year, but i like the contrast to my desk job and i learn something new every time. I get it though. Mine is easy to fix, 4 cyl, 90s car, no turbo, no vtec no computer no nothing, all mechanical, even the steering is just geared, not powered. xD
But i like it, for the reason he sold his car when he was working and felt like all his earnings went into his car. Nearly no money goes into my car. It's not a cool car, but it works every time. It's cheap reliable transportation, exactly what i'm looking for and i love it.
When I went to college, my '93 Ford Tempo needed new ball joints. My father brought it yo the mechanic and found out how much it would cost, and called for a ride home and just left it there. I found out a month later!😮
I've felt that rear bushing death wabble wizzard. My friend had been down the same route. A crow bar underneath revealed the 1" of play. I milled out the old and pressed a fresh pair. Boom! Stable vehicle
I remember the Pathfinder death wobble. Loved that wobble as a kid. I always told my uncle to speed up.
I like what he said about not wanting the car to control his life- 4:20 I phrase it in a question like this, Does your car own you or do you own your car?
If you can’t get a door ding on a parking lot without getting upset, the object has the upper hand.
At first, I thought the clovers on the shirt was the symbol for the fan speed button lol. Wizard rocks!
Moral of the story; Find yourself a good Ms. or Mr. Wizard.
I like mechanics like The Wizard. Slow and steady wins the race everytime. We could learn a lot from this guy.
When i achieved My 1st car beginning of 2022 it was a 2000 impala, i believe it to be the base launch model and exterior wise it was beautiful and had all accessories but mechanically it was aging and worn. I got it at 227k and sadly lasted till 230,822
My whole upbringing ive been wanting to be a mechanic to work on cars but that impala was draining me and spent more time in the shops than on the road. As a 19yr at the time i wanted to cherish it but then it sufferd a parasitic draw that no shop couldn’t diagnose leaving my car to crank but no start.. R.I.P Big Blue
The wizard, without the iconic beard, is just not the wizard😂
I can 100% relate to the frustration of a car giving issues and it's probably something simple but I just want it gone.
I have coincidentally a VW but mines a Passat that has given me issues my entire ownership. I'm gonna get it fixed but it's leaving when I do, the turbo went 2 months in, the battery constantly dies, the clutch went and it still isn't working properly after the mechanic looked at it three times.
That car has broken me, I've no doubt the next owner will love it but for me the anger that hits me when I look at it is too much.
Dave really has a love/hate relationship with cars. I feel your pain. Keep up the great content.
I sure can relate Car Wizard. Yep i got rid of some i regret and had life get in the way of others, by life i mean really bad decisions that had things been different i would've kept the cars longer but to hell with all of it. I had a hard time learning lifes lessons. But look at me now. Iv got the best car i ever had. I love it so much. I just spent like 1200 bucks on a stereo right after buying new tires 500 miles ago. We only live once i keep telling myself. My finances will recover soon enough. Its just life in the big city.
I had a 91 Grand Prix se it was a great car an automatic and I would drive 4 hours straight sitting on the governor all the time that thing never skipped a beat had to change alternator once that’s it.
These stories have made me feel a little better about some of my poor choices in life, thanks car wizard
I had an 80s Dodge product that would randomly die going down the road. I eventually realized it was doing it under the bigger electric transmission power lines or the low hanging ones. Eventually my dad helped me diagnose it as a failing pickup coil in the distributor. I hated that thing so much.
My first car was a 1988 Dodge Shadow Shelby ES Turbo 5 speed manual PS/PB Am/FM Cassette Tilt wheel cruise control fog lights rear defrost Power Mirrors and locks and Power D Seat and sunroof crank windows paid 550.00 for it perfect condition with 95k miles in 1995.
any more? love these wizard behind the scene videas
That’s comical wizard. Easy big guy 😂.
Wizard is a fkn G! Dude gets mad chick's but acts humble 😂
Better than what I did as a teenager I had a 1978 Monte Carlo that ran terrible and broke down a lot. I got it for like $800 and one day it left us stranded and almost made me miss a trip with friends and I got so mad I kicked the hell out of it. Dented it badly all the way around it and sold it cheap to a family member who turned it into a Dirt Track race car.
That escort...my first car was an 89 escort GT, I loved that thing, I woukd love to have another some day
Car Wizard lore is exactly what we all needed!
Yea i had a highlander that literally every last part on it was new that i put in, down to the pistons. The block was still factory. Which it kept throwing the oil light on for some reason. New pump and rings and all. I just figured it was something i screwed up rebuilding it so i unplugged the oil pressure sensor as it was just a trigger for the light and sold it.. that thing drove for another 300k miles. That poor block had a total of 570k miles on it, still on the road. With all the parts i put on it, oil sensor still unplugged.. lol.. sold it for 3600.. put about 2000 in parts on it including what i paid for it so 1600 profit for the work i put in it but should have either kept it or sold it for double that.. you live you learn i guess..
When I was in high school, my dad had a Chevy cavalier, it wouldn't pass an emissions test because the relay for the fans was out, triggering a check engine light, he scrapped it over that 😂 said he didn't care to fix it anymore and wanted something else
The only reason some cars have such values today is that 99% of them have been scrapped. In 1984 sold my fully working Mark One 2 door Escort for £400 when I upgraded. Have a look at how much that would be worth now they are considered to be a rally car classic.
My Mom had a powder blue VW Rabbit EXACTLY like that when I was young.
Omg, love the temper and impatience, hilarious!
Parent stories like that drive me crazy because they will be stupified and possibly hurl insults but you best believe they're not gonna help you pay for any of it
I have the opposite problem, I'm sentimental and stubborn and won't give up on a car when I should. In hindsight, usually the right time to give up on a car I've owned was right before I bought it 😂
Yeah, if we had the internet "back in the day" and great parts availability, we could have done a lot better. I could have repaired the torque converter clutch solenoid on the FWD Turbo Hydra-Matic 125 on my 1983 Cutlass Ciera 2.5. But when the wires for all 4 electric windows went straight across from the unibody to the door, I still would have had to unscrew the armrest and run new window wires.
Definitely wasn't a stupid decision to pick the bicycle over a car when you are a teenager spending half your paycheck on the car. That's financially smart.
I knew this guy was a total dork. I would NEVER let him touch one of my cars.
You’re judging him for things that happened 25+ years ago?
@jacobyo99 Yup. My earliest memories are of cars. My entire childhood was spent waiting for the day I got my DL. And at 15, I couldn't wait anymore and bought my first car. I never had a lick of help from mommy and daddy, and by 18, I was working full time as a mechanic, and had my own apartment with 3 or 4 cars at all times. Yes. I'm judging him. If I had a issue with one of my cars as a young man, I fixed it.
Literally no more than a week ago my late father's '79 mercedes w123 230 starting acting up on me. It would run very rough and either to rich or lean and was extremely hard to start and eventually straight up refused to start so matter how many times I went to crank it. I asked around and people kept telling me replace the coil but I've tested the coil it was perfectly fine no issues there and I was at my wits end with it and left it to collect my thoughts until someone said to check the points and lo and behold the points weren't even opening and even got to confirm that the coil was perfectly fine when I started opening the points manually, hooked a spark plug to the coil wire, and was now finally emitting nice blue sparks. Just by coincidence I had a brand new point that me and my dad bought mine years ago, put it in and gapped it as good as I can with feeler guages, and not even two turns of the starter that car fired with such authority and sang like she never did before it never ran this smooth ever since it started dailying it two years ago and I gotta say this was one of if not the proudest repairs I've ever done to that car.
Usually that car keeps inventing new issues on me because it was sitting for so long that parts start to give out because they were just old so I just kept it running by simply fixing what's just enough to keep it on the road and just roll with it. I'm pretty sure if I had the wizard's mindset I would have just abandoned it or gave it away or something but I'm the type of guy who just too stubborn to let a problem get in my way it has nothing to do with patience mind you I'm just the type who fixes something where everyone else just calls it quits not to mention the sheer sense of pride and triumph of being the only one who can fix it with a little hint of course.
Never have laughed out loud while my heart was breaking, until I heard your 84' Rabbit story. Hilarious but unacceptable.
Wizard, your already a legend in my book
I got my xj jeep because it would random stall and not start for a while. Even beat out fuel filter. Finally I got jiggling wires. Found a short in injectors from an alarm or remote start wired into a manual jeep xj.
I fucked up the linkage in my base model 01 subaru and (for some reason) thought it was the transmission I grenaded, despite the fact it could get to first but wouldn't stay in first so that's why i thought I grenaded it. I was living with a few old guys cuz we all rented a room in the sams house, and one of them told me his daughter had the exact same issue with her 03 outback and turned out to be an easy fix. I found that out the day after selling it, and the guy was even there helping me get it on the trailer for the junk yard but ig I just never said anything until the next day... still miss that car. R.I.P Doubtful Delilah, ur memory lives on 🙏
Those 2 years riding a bike were brilliant
Back in the 80s and 90s cars were so cheap, you could get beaters for like 50 bucks so soon as they needed any kinda expensive repair just throw it out and get another one. Looking back i junked some semi decent vehicles i wish i would have saved but chances are they would have been all rusted out by now anyways
You need to interview the car wizards insurance agent😂😂😂.
This guy pulled the jackpot
Went from being a car idiot to the car wizard. What a change of events and lifestyle
$4.25/hr as a kid is a kings ransom! When I was that age I worked 6 days a week, from about 05:30 in the morning until 23:30-23:45 at night, did have breaks for breakfast, lunch and dinner and between about 21:00 to 22:45 I was free. I got about $13/day. I worked at a racehorse stables, had to get up to feed the 40+ horses at stupid o clock, then only after I could go for a coffee and a sandwich, then start cleaning the boxes - 'rooms' of the horses one by one, stop to feed them again at 09:45 I think it was, then back to $hit shoveling until 12:00 go for lunch, then back, feed again, shoveling until 16:45 - feed again, then either break or shovel more until hungry, then eat, feed, have some free time, feed then go to bed. My "day off" wasn't a day off in the true sense, but it did mean that I could sleep a bit longer and work a lot less. I did have to make special arrangements if I wanted to leave and go somewhere. I lived in a house 50m from the stables. Don't remember exactly since it was a bit over 30yrs ago. A small room was included, but in a house shared with all the other staff there, 6 - 7 people.
Worked there for 3 months to buy my first "half decent"(SLR) camera, which turned out o be a dud, it never once worked 😂it had some defect in the film advance mechanism so it took zero pictures, I do not remember what I did with the camera once that dawned on me - but it was gonerz. I never got a single picture out of it, but since I didn't know that it didn't work it did teach me camera handling, composition etc to some degree since I did get practice with it, just never got to see the result. Film itself wasn't that expensive but to have it developed was like 1,25$ per print roughly, so I nursed the same film roll the whole summer, but then it kept going instead of stopping when I advanced the film, procrastinated a few weeks before I opened it up only to find it had never advanced the film at all, just ripped it. I now have multiple cameras and so on, but that disaster made me postpone photography for about 10yrs until I could rent a digital one I could verify worked.
The job was in the 1990's, 93 or 94.
Thank you sir, with great respect on your life journey.
Thanks, Mr Wizard, for sharing my life story!!😂😂😂
I had an ‘01 Pathfinder LE. Got rid of it when the engine started knocking. Don’t miss its gas bill though.
Had 1984 Wabbit, owned for 16 years until alternator started to go out
Picture of baby wizard in his uniform was hilarious
My first car was not "that bad" but after i got rid of it, i felt i could've rode the bus for one more year and been just fine. My parents were just looking out, i or they wouldn't realize how much would be spent on that thing in 3-4 years i would have it
I do not know anything about this guy except for this story and since he is on Vinwiki and has the handle Wizard I assume he has grown up and learned a lot.
I was tearing out and fixing engines and transmissions before I turned 13.
By the time I was 17 I owned 15 cars and trucks. Graduated high school. Got married and joined The Marine Corp. That was more than 40 years ago and I'm still not a Wizard. F .me.
Losing money on cars is cheaper than psychological treatment.
What a geological oddity.. he always lives a couple of miles from where his car breaks down. 😅
geographical*
bout a year back, i found a (not running) Kawasaki Klr 450 for $500. "just needs a gas tank and a new Carb"
i thought: "hey thats a really good deal, i can rebuild a carb. Or just buy an amazon one if need be!"
so i rent a trailer, grab 5 Bengi's out of my safe, and off i go. look at the bike the best i could, and buy it.
I realize the tank is crusty, but still intact. so i do the old Vinegar + a chain trick to clean it out. works perfect.
Now its time to tackle the carb. Get it apart and dont see anything catastrophic. Put it back together.
Try to start it. It wont catch AT ALL. no burble or bark. no signs of life.
throw ether down the carb. still nothing.
Check spark. it sparks.
Decide to do a compression test. --> None. Zilch. Nada.
Smoke test it: Exhaust smokes like my dad did after a stressful day.
toasted vailves.
Decide "its just valves, i can do that"
As im tearing this bike apart, watching the pile of parts keep growing, and seeing that this stupid single cylinder motor is built like a jigsaw puzzle, all the wind leaves my sails. realize i dont have room for this crud. dont have the time to work on it. just start fuming when i even see it in the garage.
I wanted it gone. and in my anger, i just see it as a pile of junk. "no one would want this, so i cant sell it." think ill have to pay a junk service to take it.
thankfully my wife convinced me to adleast post it for sale as it was.
within 3 days someone came and took it off my hands for $300.
In retrospect: the motor was super simple. but i could just never get the time to really focus on it for more then an hour a day. and my anger at it for not being the simple fix i was expecting clouded my judgement. plus i just didnt have the garage space/organization to keep track of all the parts the way i should.
still think selling it when i did was the right choice just for the sake of my blood pressure. but yeah. impatience can be a b*tch.
Also: never spend more money then you can afford to lose.
miss my poor 88 300zx, but i was done replacing its water pump every year
Epic tales of the path that the great man walked before he became the legend that we know as _The Wizard_
No insurance?! The Wizard is a rebel!
my first car was a 1988 chyrsler fifth avenue it was a good car while it ran.
Love the story of his first car wow