Love, hate, heartbreak

2510D784-AFE5-4063-ABF4-C43CC8969E61-29590-0000053BBAD1C63F.jpg Photo by irangeles | Photobucket

Houston has a major flash flood. (I didn’t know anything about this until…) Girlfriend was at work, got an email late from her building saying that her street was prone to flooding. But by the time she got home at 7PM, she didn’t see any indication of flooding.

girlfriend takes my car to work (told her to take it around every few days to make sure the battery wouldn’t go flat.) She called me at 4AM, LA time, (she’s a teacher and goes to work at 6AM) and she said, there’s water in your car, when I took my laptop out of your backseat floor it was wet, and she was hysterical, she felt REALLY bad… I told her, look, don’t worry about it, it’s too damn early, I just went to bed at 2AM, just have a good day at work…
She called 2 hours later and asked what I should do, and again, I told her not to worry about it, but she felt SO BAD that she insisted she takes off work to do something. And I told her to not worry.
Another hour later, she called and said, “look, what do you want me to do, I took the day off.” Now I felt bad. And I told her to take it to a carwash to have them vacuum the water out. She called me a about 15 min later and said that there was WAY TOO much water in the car and asked what I should do.
I called ***, he was in Los Angeles visiting his family, LOL. He called the dealership, called me and told me to tell my GF see Jennifer, the girl who worked next to him and they’ll give my GF a ride home.

At first, Jennifer called me and said look, you’re at $800 of damage for the floor board or whatever, maybe you should call your insurance company. I said well, my deductible is $1000, I’ll go out of pocket, but can you wait until I get there? No problem.
I also called Charles and said WTF, is something wrong with the car that there is water IN it after a it rained really hard. He said there was a TSB for a drainage hose from the sunroof down the A-pillar and it can get clogged and drain into the car)

I get a call from Keith, the service manager, he said the issue wasn’t with the A-pillar drain, he said that my GF drove the car around, and because of that, water got into the transmission or the transmission ECU or whatever and he said the water line is half way up the door, so it was actually in the flood. (He emailed my pics as well.) He said that right now we have a preliminary estimate of $8,000, and now it’s time to call my insurance. I said to hold off doing anything, and I’ll call. (It was at this point that I decided that this car NEEDS to be totaled)

I called my insurance, and they said they were backed up, and I said, well, I get in tomorrow, and I am deathly allergic to mold, and I tried to BS as much as I could over the phone to make them try to push a total. The person didn’t care TOO much, and he said that an adjuster would come out in the next few days, and I asked if the adjuster could come AFTER Friday and to call me before he/she came out because I was destined to arrive Friday night and I wanted to be there when they gave the estimate.

When my gf picked me up she wouldn’t hug me because she thought I was pissed off because she was the reason my car got totaled, LOL!!! (But I truly wasn’t)

So, I go check out the car, I first notice that there is water on the inside of the windshield, I needed interior wipers, LOL!!!

It still had a lot of water in it, ALL MY .40cal bullets are GONE!!! ;-(

The spare tire had water to the brim as well and I saw that where the auxiliary power outlet was, had rusted and there was a waterline on all the seats. The headliner had water and the radio had water as well.

Video of the death:

I get a call from the adjuster saying that the car was declared a total loss, and I was confused for a second, LOL. He said, “I’m not supposed to tell you, but once someone calls you and gives you an offer on your car, you have TEN DAYS to find a new car before we stop paying for your rental car. So start looking NOW.”
BITCHIN’!!! I started going to TOWN looking for cars, but I didn’t have a payout figure. I assumed $20k… The trade in value at the time was around $19k and the CPO retail was $26k (GOD KNOWS WHY, because you could buy a base model for $26 if it was they had the correct incentives)

So I started looking. Maximas had gone up in price like a SOB, no more $20k base used ones (this is where I got some STUPID things from dealerships Most Stupid Thing Heard From a Nissan Dealer) And luckily they guy let me test drive a used 370Z too, but I needed to get an estimate of how much insurance was going to pay me.

I also call Charles and said, “Well Charles… It looks like my brake problems are fixed, the car is gone, declared a total loss.” And we both share a laugh (no homo.) And he says, “Well, sorry to see your car go, and sorry it caused you so many headaches.” I laughed and said, “Well, hopefully its for the best, and as much as I enjoy talking to you, I hope to never talk to you again about any Nissan problems!” And we both laughed, I asked where I can send him a gift for being such an awesome guy.

Even though it was 2012, Tom Peacock had THREE brand new 2010 Monterey Blue roadster 370Zs with sport touring… They were about $8k off, and I hadn’t even seen a MBlue 370, LOL, I said I’d look it up, (phone was lagging because I was on the phone) so I asked him to describe the shade… He hesitated and said… “Yeahhh… It’s Smurf Blue…” I DIED LAUGHING! And after looking into it, I said look, if I buy the car, and put ZERO miles on it, the KBB trade in is a little less than you’re selling it now. And if I put 1000 miles on it, it’s over $1500 less… So that was my turn off (also, sorry MBlue roadster owners, I thought it clashed too much and was kinda ugly)

I called Grapevine Nissan and got another DUMB response… (a 2008 370Z with 14k miles, and it was $18k, LOL Most Stupid Thing Heard From a Nissan Dealer)

Hey look, I'm not the only hater:
DO NOT COME TO TEXAS NISSAN OF GRAPEVINE DEALERSHIP, read my story to find out why...

I find a private seller in Ohio, 2009, MBlue coupe, sport, touring, 9-10k miles, Stillen G3 intake and exhaust. Seller wanted $31,500, too high. He got down to $30,500, and I still couldn’t do it. I said $29k, and I’ll be on the first plane to Ohio, cash in hand. We couldn’t agree…

2 weeks before my rental was up, Friday, January 27th, I call Round Rock Nissan, 30 min north of Austin. They just posted a 2009 370Z, MBlue, 7AT, sport, touring, nav, 14k miles, and every other option.
$29,977, internet price $28,877.

Hmmmmmmm… We may have our winner…

Back story:
In any case, it wasn’t a bad deal, KBB trade in was around $28,300.
I called back and said, look, you certify it for $28,477, give me two keys, and we have a deal, I’ll give you my credit card info right now for a $1000 deposit to hold the keys, and if when I come to check out the car it hasn’t been painted and such, I’ll pay the rest.
He called me back in 10 minutes and he said they can certify it. LOL!!!

AWESOME!!! I’ve got my car!!! I insisted that he take my CC info, and said I’ll be at the dealership at 11AM. He KINDA blew me off and didn’t really think I’d be there.

10:47AM, I was there, I could sense he was the guy I was looking for, and HE could sense the same too. So I walked up to him, and asked “Jim?” at the same time he asked “Amin?” (Iranian name). LOL!!!

And he was still shocked that I had come down, he even said, “I thought you were pulling my chain, I didn’t think you’d be here, AND EARLY!”
Back Story:

I go and look over the car, “I’ll take it, where do we do the paperwork?” No test drive, no nothing. I did take the car on a drive after Jim insisted, it was sweet, no denying it.

MINOR buying issue:


I meet the dreaded finance guy...:


My old friend/I WON:


Pickup:

Houston for the gf, Austin for my new AR15, LOL.

Gas gauge wouldn’t show full… Call *** again, tell him what’s up, he tells me to bring him In N Out from Dallas, which I did, LOL.
They say the last LED is burnt out, and they have to special order a cluster with the correct mileage, LOL

10 days later, my car was ready, and over 1500 miles on their loaner, I had my car back with a working gas gauge, LOL

No problems for a while, but I decide to move back to CA on a whim because my grandparents are getting too old and I felt I need to be with them…

The car isn’t clean, has 1/8th of a tank of gas, we get in, notice this really off smell, like your grandmother’s house, whatever… We go to Costco, a 30 second drive, get out… My buddy notices, this MASSIVE dent on the trunk where the “Maxima” badge is. We figure f-it, I’m sure the guy noted that. And he didn’t take me on a walk around or anything, and I didn’t think the guy would screw me…

I drove back to Costco to buy a battery… I get to a stop sign go to turn the wheel, SH*T… The power steering cut out… Oh wait, F*CKING CAR IS OFF!!! It died again!!! (3/4 of a tank of gas btw)…

I start it up, and I get the same starting issues, car is running on 4 cylinders, I decide, **** it, I’m driving it on 4, then all 6 start to fire…

SOB:

Cool story.