This weekend my 96 Explorer finally kicked the bucket for good. It was pretty impeccable timing as well, just as I was ready to buy a new car due to the gas prices. Friday night I loaded it up with things to bring home to visit the folks, went to the gas station, filled er up to the brim, parked it, ran inside to go stock up on smokes for the trip, and tried to rev it up. *whir whir whir... ROAR! BOOOOOM!"* The RPMs bottomed out to 0, the radiator gauge went red, the pedals and wheel locked up, the engine went fully dead with no belt activity whatsoever, and the only things left working were the interior lights and radio which were powered by the car battery. As for everything else that made it a car, they all went kaput.
So I tore the plate off, grabbed my things and got a ride out to the dealership, and bought the new 2008 Toyota Scion XB for around $18,000.
Scion xB - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Egads I love this car. It's all boxy and ugly on the outside, but the inside is so roomy I can finally sit up straight without my 6'6" self feeling like a sardine in a can. The newer models come with a mp3/wma cd player and external Ipod jacks, and the ride home was a sweet 32mpg highway miles.
Sad as I was to see the Explorer go, at 240,000 miles and 12 years put into it, I literally drove it into the dirt. I only wish it had died *before* I pumped that 70 bucks of gas into it! Ah well, it's being picked up any day now from the gas station parking lot for charity. I figure that with all the Explorers that the local police department have on the streets, they could use another frame, even if the engine's shot. It's not like they ever kill a car from miles, they just keep ramming them into suspects who fail to pay their protection money... er, insurance. I'm also keeping the reciept so any time I get pulled over for going 32 in a 30 so I can show them a copy and sarcastically tell them to thank me for their squad car, lol.
