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

we sold/gave a 2004 mazda3 hatch to my sister in law back in october with 73k on it. she went and decided it was time to get the adjustable upper control arms so she wouldnt wear out as many tires. so car gets brought to me. first thing i notice is the incredible racket coming out from the motor. investigation brought no oil on dipstick... add 3 qts ok still a half qt low. run engine for 5 minutes. oil is mudd. ok drain motor fill with atf- run for an hour. drain and fill with motor oil. start motor... oil black as nite again.... ok repeat. this time it gets clean. while under car notice upper right hand motor mount is blown and the lower is too. we had snow this past winter and she had decided to plow through a 3 day old pile a plow had left at her driveway... bumper destroyed. jack up vehicle. both out tie rod ends, sway bar links, lower ball joints all bad!!!!!!! replace all those yesterday. rear sway bar links also bad replace. replace the upper control arms. look at rear bumper. she has backed into something also.... notice one of tail lights is cracked. car now has 113k on it.... yes 40k in 7 months. she has no reason to drive this much. she is an alcholic who drive to work. comes home takes her kid out for 3 hours comes home again then goes back out till 2 or 3 in the am then driving home drunk. note we sold this car to her for 4k hence why i say it was us giving. and front struts and rear shocks are done. when we gave it to her brandnew kyb's and racing beat springs were just installed. along with 235 40 17 tires. she is on 5 set of tires cause she wont check the pressure in them. and engine still sounds like an 80's diesel.

My wife decided to floor the Focus out of a foot of snow this year. After digging the car out and dinging the bumper with a shovel.. There were words. Oh... There... Were... Words...

I understand your frustration, but . . .

once you sell it to someone its not yours anymore. best to just let it go. Some people treat cars like they treat their fridge. Slam the doors, run it all the time, check nothing and then call it damn unreliable when it quits working.

Don't be surprised if you SIL rags on you for selling her an unreliable car!

oh she already is. called me a lyeing conniving b*tch whatever. fact is she didnt change the oil for 40k and the car still runs. didnt check or change the oil for 40k. if she drove like a normal person the car would be just fine.

I understand what you're saying, but can you expect an outstanding character like her to appreciate what has been given to her?

no i guess not. and obviously my disdain goes a lot deeper than this considering she says i ruined her sisters life. but still.

Wow. Can't win. Well, don't fix anything for her again, and certainly no more gifts.

KATYB wrote: oh she already is. called me a lyeing conniving b*tch whatever.

that is perfect!

[sarcasm] you are clearly (in her mind) a giant turd who has no business working on cars. that means you no longer have to work on her car. i mean, she'd have to be an idiot to let you ever touch her car again, right? And you'd have to really be inconsiderate to subject her and her car to such unskilled hackery. [/sarcasm]

katyb = WIN.

sure, it'll lead to at least one uncomfortable discussion with your SO, but at the end of the day, if you fix it again you're enabling her to be irresponsible.

tuna55 wrote: Wow. Can't win. Well, don't fix anything for her again, and certainly no more gifts.

Yeah, this.

My sister and her husband are the type who just use cars up with no regard. Over the last 30 years I have seen them acquire and then devastate quite a line of decent, inexpensive, clean drivers. Never anything too fancy, but always nice, solid cars that simply do not deserve the fate they have in store. On the way to falling completely to pieces mechanically, they get filled with junk and bumped into anything that happens to be somewhere near in the way.

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.

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.

$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.

its side work outside of a shop. only once have i ever had a customer i refused to do business with. and thats cause she is my ex. who i came home to find in bed with a mexican who doesnt speak english.

No good deed, etc,etc.

untill now i have never charged my sil a single dime to work on a car. including the engines ive put in over the years and trannsmissions and heatercores.

KATYB wrote: untill now i have never charged my sil a single dime to work on a car. including the engines ive put in over the years and trannsmissions and heatercores.

Same here, but I help people who deserve help. God arranges these things for the most part for me.

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.

Listen to her.

I live in OK (well not right now), would happily call you my sister in-law and would care for that car.

Taking care of your nephew is admirable. But maybe you should just start offering him rides rather than give really nice cars to folks who will destroy them. A leather, nav Mazadspeed3?!?!? Thats a great car.

But what would really set me off is not the car, but the disdain for you and your partner. How did you ruin her life? By being together? Raising a child? Providing a home? By giving her crappy sister transport (all of which she apprently failed to do for her family).

Man, berkley that noise. You work too hard on your own car, much less your job to have to fix all her crap. If your partner is telling you to let go, heed her advice. That intiial entry sounds like a whole weekend you could have gone to an autoX, modified your car or more importantly, hung out with your own family.

I do have to applaud you for your good character. Even with a less than smooth relationship with this woman, you are still willing to try and help make the car right.

My hat is off to you on this one, I would have given up long ago...

Mental wrote:

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.

Listen to her. I live in OK (well not right now), would happily call you my sister in-law and would care for that car. Taking care of your nephew is admirable. But maybe you should just start offering him rides rather than give really nice cars to folks who will destroy them. A leather, nav Mazadspeed3?!?!? Thats a great car. But what would really set me off is not the car, but the disdain for you and your partner. How did you ruin her life? By being together? Raising a child? Providing a home? By giving her crappy sister transport (all of which she apprently failed to do for her family). Man, berkley that noise. You work too hard on your own car, much less your job to have to fix all her crap. If your partner is telling you to let go, heed her advice. That intiial entry sounds like a whole weekend you could have gone to an autoX, modified your car or more importantly, hung out with your own family.

not a speed 3. 04 3 hatch. autotragic but header, cai, bored throttle. 2.25 exhaust. racing beat swaybars and springs kyb shocks/struts. 17x7.5 wheels katskin leather interior and navi system was this ... http://www.autodvdgps.com/0409-mazda-3-dvd-player-gps-navigation-system-7-digital-touchscreen-ipod-ready-steering-wheel-control-bluetooth-p-523.html

none the less, you SIL sucks. Enggboy is right, you are a good person. Better than most.

My sister got a hand-me-down finalgen Escort and drove it a good 50k miles without so much as adding oil, let alone changing it. I just thought, "Yeah. Yeah, that's what you do with an Escort."

Sounds to me like she's unhappy you are with her sister and is using the car issue as ammunition to argue. She has a problem with her sisters choice to marry a woman and I'm sure that's not news to you. Oooooooooor I may be completely of.

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.

I just can't believe how nice you are.

Or how mean I am, as that type of person never gets help from me, regardless of other factors that might imply the need for sympathy.

Could you be charged as an accessory to a DUI? She obviously can't drive drunk if her engine runs out of oil and seizes up... Don't you care about the safety of your fellow citizens? Friends don't let friends fix cars for alcoholics, or something like that.

z31maniac wrote: I just can't believe how nice you are.

This. All of my sister's life, she has been given cars, or had cars "sold" to her for extremely good prices. I refuse to help her anymore as she wrote off a car that I sold to her cheap, then did a ton of work for her (buying parts for her at cost) and installed them for free, and then wrote off the malibu she was given to her for free from my grandparents under a year later. Oh, and now she has my mom's '02 cavalier which again she got for an awesome deal.

Myself? I've never had a dime given to me car-wise, except for small loans ($1k or less) that have been paid back in full and then some so I could be in a decent car.