Well I’ve always been wanting to write a entry or two on my pimp ride as I think it is one of the main reasons why I have been able to save as much money as I have so far, but I guess I’ll start with a story on how my car or more accurately my driving habits ended up costing me a good chunk of money.

First off I drive a 1990 Ford Escort extra rusty. Bought it two years ago for $900, it like any other car I have driven is not something you’ll lose sleep over if it gets a dent or scratch, in fact I’m quite proud of the dents and scratches that it has. Anyway, I was coming home from the Packer game this last Sunday (don’t want to talk about the game) and in Wisconsin we don’t exactly have a ton of people, which in turn means we don’t have the greatest highway system. Well for Packer games an extra 70,000 people make their way to Northeast Wisconsin, which causes the two main highways into Green Bay (41&43) to get considerably backed up before and after the Packers games. Well ok, compared to any other metro city its not really a back up, but sometimes the traffic slows down to 25 miles per hour. Well I saw this and being a local decided to take a back road the 40 or so miles back to my home town.

It was a nice scenic drive and I am sure I saved myself at least 15 minutes vs trying to head back home on highway 41. Well about 10 miles from my hometown there were “Road closed – under construction signs”. Well I rarely head this way, but I knew it had been under construction since April this year and had to be nearly done. It was completely blacktopped and just needed to be painted so I continued on my way. Well about 8 miles down the road there was a 1 mile strech of unpaved road. Just small gravel and there were other cars traveling on it too so I kept going. Well further down the road the small gravel turned to large stones (3 inch+ gravel) and I did notice that I was the only non-4 wheel drive truck on the road at this point. Then all of a sudden my car started to swerve towards the ditch (mind you I was going 10mph so it wasn’t a big deal), so i stopped and tried to steer my way back towards the center of the road. To no avail I couldn’t get my car to go where I wanted it to. Well I get out and notice that my right front wheel is turned completely out and well my left front wheel was also turned completley out in the opposite direction. Now I’m by no means an auto expert, but even I realized something wasn’t right. Well I end up calling AAA to get a tow, they say the guy is like 5 minutes away and should be right there. Well 1 hour later a cop shows up, writes me a ticket for failure to obey a road sign (Road Closed) the ticket is doubled because I am in a construction zone, 5 minutes after cop shows up the tow truck finally shows up, turns out I have a broken tie rod and a bent tie-rod, and odds are my auto insurance will go up next premium. Only good news is the tow was free from AAA and the repairs only cost me $110.

Moral of story there is reason they don’t show Ford escort going off road on commercials.