Monday, December 31, 2012

Selling My Car


My Baby... We have been together for 9 years

I sold my car on the weekend. I was originally planning to hold onto it so that when I come back to Australia I have something I can drive but in the last 12 months it has cost me quite a bit of money to keep on the road and every few weeks something new seems to break. I spent Thursday cleaning out my stuff and giving it a really good clean. It looks like new.... Almost...

  1. There was a very bad leak in the clutch system hydraulics  As soon as you ride the clutch for any length of time (i.e. Pressurising the system) it drops all the oil on the road. Gear changes have to be fast and a bottle of clutch fluid is required to top the system up on a regular basis. 
  2. The gas lift struts for the bonnet are buggered
  3. The shock absorbers need to be replaced
  4. The fuel cap is snapped off (this happened about 3 years ago and I never bothered to fix it)
  5. The drivers side seat is broken. When you sit in it your bum sunk all the way to the floor and the angle adjustment knob for back support has broken off.
  6. The window tinting had started to bubble and warp in some places
  7. The indicators sometimes don’t work. Instead of blinking on and off they turn on and stay on.
  8. The roof lining is falling down
  9. The drivers side window winder knob falls off when you use it
  10. The aerial is snapped off
  11. The air-conditioning is broken
  12. One of the back tyres was scrubbing badly on the inside and was not road legal.
  13. The fuel gauge shows full even when the tank is almost empty
  14. The remote central locking buttons on my key are totally worn out. There is no rubber left. You have to push down on the tact switch inside the key to use it.
  15. There is a leak round the windscreen somewhere. Whenever it rains heavily water seeps in and the car has a unpleasant wet smell. 

I was really worried about how much the clutch problem would devalue the car. Luckily the car salesman walked just around the car to do a visual inspection and then turn the engine on to see how well it started and have a listen to it. He asked me about the air-conditioning and I was upfront and said it didn't work, but I kept my mouth shut about everything else. I followed him around and looked over his shoulder at what he was writing down. Pretty much the only thing he spotted wrong was the broken fuel cap.

Below are some pictures of my baby (and the things that were wrong). I have had this car for 9 years. 


Clutch fluid lead. I am very happy this failed in my driveway one day and not up the coast a long way from home.


Broken fuel cap. It is one of those things that I was planning to fix for about 3 years.



You can see how bad the tyre is scrubbing on the right hand side. The groove should go all the way to the edge of the tyre.



My roof lining is falling down. the best thing about my seat breaking is that I sat lower and the roof lining no longer hit my head.

The drivers side window winding knob falls off as soon as you try to use it. Maybe if I got the air-conditioning fixed I wouldn't have worn it out :)




Broken aerial. I snapped it off on a tree while reversing out of a driveway.

Friday, December 28, 2012

My EPIK Adventure Part 4

Good news! On the Christmas day I checked my inbox to find that I had an email from my recruiting agent (Gone2Korea). I have been offered a job in my city of choice, Daejeon. In the next week I should receive my NOA (Notice of Appointment) and job contract in the mail. Once I receive them I can start to organize my Korean working visa. While I wait for that I will be busy working through the pre-orientation course on the EPIK website.