I had to take my 2006 Toyota Tacoma in to the shop on Monday because the power steering had clearly gone … turning the wheel had become an unpleasant “armstrong ungeared” experience. The initial estimate was over $5000 to fix, as it was quite an involved repair, but I swallowed hard and signed the estimate. I got a call from the shop early Wednesday afternoon, but it wasn’t the cheery “the work’s done” message I was expecting, but a much more depressing “the truck’s frame is rotted and the vehicle is probably not roadworthy”.
The initial $5000+ estimate was already going to rip the bottom out of my financial plans for the year, and there’s no chance of finding a replacement for anything even close to that price, so I’m without a personal vehicle for the first time in nearly 40 years (fortunately, Elizabeth will let me borrow her RAV4 whenever she doesn’t need it, so I’m not a permanent pedestrian).
After we took delivery of the truck on Halloween, 2005, we took a drive up to the southern reaches of Algonquin Park where I took a few photos of the new vehicle. It would rarely be this shiny again.
Honestly, this was an April Fool’s joke I never saw coming.
I remember when Bill Mauldin was in Chicago Sun-Times. And, sorry about your vehicle.
Comment by MBlanc46 — April 4, 2024 @ 14:57
Thanks. It’ll take me a while to adapt to not being able to just jump in my vehicle whenever I feel like it (not that I’ve been doing that much with the price of gas and my perennial lack of funds, but in theory …)
Comment by Nicholas — April 4, 2024 @ 21:05