The age of the pickup has ended. My 1987 Nissan Pickup limped along bravely after the accident, even after being declared a total loss (i.e. “totaled”) by the insurance company – until the battery light came on. Still, I held out hope that I’d just have to replace the battery, and all would be well. This past Friday, I decided to pay a visit to the Department of Licensing, since I hadn’t heard anything from them yet, and I knew that they were supposed to contact me about sending them my title, since the truck had been declared totaled. After waiting for 30 minutes, I was told that I had to go to the vehicle licensing office, not the driver licensing office – so I made my way there, waited in a much shorter line, and I found out that I’d been driving illegally all along. Apparently you can’t drive a totaled vehicle until you get an inspection by the state patrol, unless you get a 60-day temporary license pending your inspection, or a 1-day temporary license for the day of the inspection. I did the latter, since it was much cheaper, and I already had an appointment for an inspection this Thursday.

On my way home from work on Friday, I noticed that all was not well with the truck. There was definitely something battery-related going on. When I got close to home, the truck just about died, but it held on until I approached my street. Fortunately I drive downhill to get home, because the truck died as I was turning onto my street. I was able to coast down the road and halfway up my driveway. I tried to start it again, but got nothing. I thanked God that I wasn’t stuck somewhere and walked into my house. I was able to start the car again later that evening, which made me realize that the problem is probably more serious than a simple battery replacement. I started rethinking my options.

I decided to do a little car shopping on Saturday. I roamed around I-5 Auto World for a little while, talking to one salesperson and even going for a test drive. Mostly I was simply reminded why I hate shopping for cars. Furthermore, car dealers aren’t all that interested in someone looking for a really good deal on a really used car. I returned home empty-handed, but soon got a call back from Lee Hornbeck at Blade Chevrolet, who sold us our minivan last year. He actually had a car that sounded interesting, so I drove over there, checked it out, and ultimately bought it.

The car is a burgundy 1999 Ford Escort LX. Its purpose is to get me to and from the office for as many months (dare I hope for years?) as possible, hopefully consuming less fuel than my pickup did. It has a 5-speed manual transmission, 90,000 miles under its belt, a couple of air bags, etc. It has a “rebuilt” title, which means that it has been totaled and repaired – and it shows. I won’t bore you with the back story, but Lee claimed to know the family, etc. Anyway, it was listed for almost $3,000, but Lee had already made it clear that they were very flexible with the price, and I ended up getting it for $1,800. A sweet deal if it fulfills its purpose. Here’s a picture out in the rain:

Did I mention that I got almost $2,000 for my truck as part of the insurance claim? That was considerably more than I expected to get, to be quite honest. Now all that’s left to do is get it to the salvage yard and hope to get $100 for the parts. I hope I can get it there on its own power…