Last year, I got into my pretty new ride – a newer model of a car I basically already had. It was a pretty gold 1999 Lexus ES300, one of my favorite body styles out there even among new cars! I was excited to find it at a used car lot, for a decent price, looking so good. My old Lexus was falling apart, and I needed something new anyway. I was hoping to find a white one, but gold was just fine. I can still remember driving away in it, feeling to cold air conditioner and loving how clean and pretty the luxury interior was.
It was fun to drive, and I drove a lot. Driving is something that relaxes me, and I love to be where the people are, in my car. I love blaring my favorite music with my sunroof popped up, and I love the way I look and feel in my pretty 1999 Lexus ES300.
But I don’t like the troubles I am now having.
It started several months ago. My engine light came on and the ride had gotten rough, especially when idling at a stop light while still in drive. It was tolerable back then, but now the ride has just gotten ridiculous!
It has gotten to the point that I have to put the car in neutral at a stop light just to avoid embarrassment at the knocking, rough sounds. Inside, the car is pulsing and jerking while sitting there, and the feeling in the car is almost like it wants to take off like a bullet, like there are surges of gas that is causing it to want to just take off. What astrange feeling. Have to keep my foot hard on the break pedal if I don’t put it in neutral or park!
And what is it like while driving? A nightmare! It does this terrible jerking, so when you have your foot on the gas, it will suddenly jerk or lurch forward, and it does this every couple minutes while driving. My head is knocked into the carseat headrest so many times during a longer drive, I literally have a headache by the time I reach my destination!
I took it to several mechanics, and no one knew what was wrong. Don’t these guys do this stuff for a living? I had many guesses, and lots of estimates of how much repairing those “guesses” would cost. Can’t go that route. Needed to figure out what the problem really was. Took it to one last shop, and finally someone had a logical answer, though not one I wanted to hear.
He informed me that the engine on my 1999 Lexus ES300 had been recalled years ago, and apparently the previous owners never took the appropriate steps to get the engine replaced. Boy, was I mad! Who in the world would let something like that go? And now I was stuck making payments on a car that had major, major issues!
How sad. But the mechanic gave me an estimate, and I was appreciative. But I just didn’t have that kind of money to shell out. So, I’m still riding around on my jerky car.
