As of this morning I officially think that cars suck!

I wandered out of the house at 8:00am ready for my daily drive to work.  Before I’d reached the end of my street I realised I had a flat tyre so reversed back into the driveway and got to changing it over for the spare.

I wasn’t confident that the spare would be any good, but through some small miracle it had a minor amount of air in it and I was able to drive to Kyogle at about 60kph (in a 100kph zone).

Thankfully the tyre shop (Singh’s Tyres and Mechanical) wasn’t hugely busy, so they were able to deal with my car straight away.  I got a couple of Cooper 235/17R15 ATR tyres on the front, a generic baranded AT tyre on the spare and the existing front tyres were moved to the back of the ute.

Total time taken for the tyre replacement was around 30 minutes, total damage to my wallet was $652. OUCH!

So, although I think cars suck, I think my wallet hates them even more.

And to think, I still have to take the ute for a service next week and that could cost up to $800!

Well today has been a financially fucked day!

I contacted Neilen’s Conveyancing this morning to find out why I had received a rates notice from Kyogle Council.  The conveyancer said the rates had been paid to the council and that I shouldn’t have got a notice.  They also said I should contact the council for further information.  I contacted Kyogle Council and was told the conveyancer hadn’t taken into account that the old owners had a pensioner discount on their rates and that $125.01 was still outstanding.  When I called the conveyancer to tell them what had happened all they said was “sorry”.

Then, this afternoon I got a call from Lismore Toyota to say they had stuffed up when I got the timing belt changed on my ute and they had forgotten to invoice me for the new radiator that I got at the time.  When I took the ute in to get the timing belt I asked them to do a quick once over and make sure the car was ok.  Instead of spending the $600 they quoted for a timing belt replacement I was charged $900 due to the other work that had to be done so it came as quite a surprise that they had forgotten to add a $500 radiator to the invoice.

So in summary, it seems that companies are either incapable of perferming the task they are employed for, or they are incapable of billing for it correctly.

Do I have any legal recourse about either of these issues? I doubt it, they no doubt have some disclaimer or there isn’t legislation to protect the consumer from organisations that prove themselves to be capable of 98% of a job, but fail dismally at the last 2%.

At least the coffee shop I always go to is capable of making a take-away latte with 2 sugars and consistantly charges $3.30 for it (and gives me every 10th one free) and can even correctly calculate the change, if only other companies were capable of the same basic mathematics!

Well the Tarago is gone.  The buyer came and picked it up today.

That’s one car down and 1 left to sell, lets hope I can get rid of it soon!

The eBay auctions for my cars have finished.

The Fairlane didn’t sell (but I have a couple of people who are still interested), but the Tarago did.  the guy who bought the Tarago will come and collect it (and pay) on Tuesday.

Oooops, I almost forgot to post about listing my Ford Fairlane and my Toyota Tarago on eBay.

On Saturday I listed the Fairlane with a $1,000 start price and $1,500 Buy It Now; the Tarago was listed with a $300 start price and a $1,000 Buy It Now.

So far I have had heaps of enquiries and a few people asking to come and look at the cars.

Someone has placed a bid on the Tarago, but as they have 0 feedback I am unsure if they will come through.

Hopefully by early afternoon on Saturday I will have both cars sold!