The saga of Dexter, the Xter and the clutch

In May of 2009, we bought Mr. Perfect a fun little SUV to drive that was quickly named Dexter, the Xter. It's lovely blue 2000 Nissan Xterra. To christen Dexter, we dragged him through the beautiful red mud of southern Utah.

We do fully understand that buying a used SUV comes with its issues. We knew that we'd probably need to put some money into him over the next few years. We just didn't realize that he needed all of the following repairs:

• A/C (fixed in May 2010)
• Heater (yeah, completely different issue than A/C) (fixed in October 2010)
• Brand new clutch (fixed in March 2010)

The new clutch came to $1200 because it also needed a new master cylinder. Well, in late November, Mr. Perfect notices that the clutch is acting funny. By the end of the month, it's obvious that something has to be done. And he's thinking that the warranty on the clutch was only for 3 months. I'm thinking, "Well, so much for Christmas. What can we return for a refund instead of store credit?"

Nothing so drastic. The master cylinder was leaking and would to be replaced, but it's still UNDER WARRANTY! Wah hoo! Huzzah huzzah huzzah! Hurray for our side! So, the Grinch doesn't get to steal Christmas, and we don't have to return anything, and Dexter gets to live at least another month...until the next big crisis.

Car shopping and random family photoness

So, we have a new car. Mr. Perfect, Game Boy, and Most Happy Girl spent the better part of a Saturday looking at and test-driving cars at various and sundry car dealerships in the Greater Salt Lake City area. We loved the Subaru, but it was out of our price range for the lack of gas milage savings. We were also interested in a Scion, but thought that the body type would get old too quickly.So we settled on, yes, another Nissan Sentra. It's lovely. Light silver with grey interior. The last one did so well, especially in the accident, that I feel very safe going with this decision.

Afterwards, we spent the evening at Crazy Theatre Chick's outrageous Christmas Open House and Decadent Food Spread (fun times had by all). At home later, Beatles Lover and Game Boy did what they could for mankind and the artistic movement of photography taking some fun pictures and playing with the editing features of the cameras. Here are a few samplings:

Not so random car things

**Updated with pictures 12-08-2008

We must take a moment to mourn the passing of a cherished love one. Yesterday, at approximately 5:15 pm, whilst traveling northbound on I-15, at about 18th South, I stopped for a back-up on the freeway for the 6th South exit. Those of you familiar with Utah and this particular part of the freeway system here will know that that's a pretty big back-up, over 10 blocks.

Well, I stopped and took a moment to check my rear view mirror in time to see the car behind me not making the stop, but swerving onto the right-hand shoulder, avoiding a collision. The car behind them wasn't so lucky. Neither was I. They hit me going about 40 mph, which pushed me into the lovely maroon Cadillac in front of me. I have now learned that airbags make a loud, explosive sound when they deploy, and they leave a really nasty smell all over your hair and clothes.

The highway patrol was very fast and efficient. They arrived in less than 15 minutes. Mr. Perfect came soon after that. He was at the office, where I was supposed to be picking him up to go and have dinner and play a dance band job in Layton. He borrowed a car from a friend at work and came to my rescue. We still made the dance job, but my car will not be leaving the wrecking yard again in this lifetime. Everyone from the girl who hit me to the tow truck guy said that it was definitely totaled. I have to agree. I didn't have my camera with me at the time, so I will again have to post pictures at a later date. However, I can tell you that the rear bumper looks like it's kissing the backseat.

Thinking over the whole thing, I realize how blessed I am by Heavenly Father to have survived this crash. If anything related to safety in my beautiful little Nissan Sentra hadn't been working properly, there is a good chance I would have been severely injured (I have a lovely bruise on my right knee from hitting the steering column and that's about it in the pain department) if not killed. It was truly amazing. However, as grateful as I am for airbags, I hope that I don't ever have to smell their deployment odor again.

Happy reading, my little pupils.