My Car, My Hassles (Part 6)

Long time blog readers will remember just over three years ago I bought a new car; a Saturn Ion. The car has served me well over that time. Very low maintenance. Just some brake work. Until this week.

This week, Ottawa saw some record highs. It went up to 34 degrees on Tuesday, and 35 on Wednesday. While I usually take the bus to work, I drive to work for extreme temperatures. If it's supposed to go above 30 degrees, I drive in. I'd rather have 1 hour in an air conditioned car, than 2 hours in a full, stuffy, stinky, sticky bus.

Everything was fine on Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday I drove to work. I didn't need the air conditioning in the morning. In the afternoon, the temperature at Gatineau Airport was 35 degrees Celsius. I was looking forward to my nice, cool car. I got in the car and started it. I turned on the air conditioning. I put my hand up to the vent. Only warm air was blowing through it. I didn't think too much of this. It usually takes a minute or two for the air conditioning to kick in.

After an hour, when I got home, the air blowing through the vent was still warm. I thought that because it was so hot out, the air conditioning system was constantly fighting the warmth outside, and since the car was sitting in a hot parking lot all day, that maybe the whole car was so warm, that by the time the air conditioned air came out of the vents, it had warmed up. I took the car out again in the evening, after it had been sitting in the shade for a while.

Still no cool air.

I opened up the hood to see if there was anything obvious like a big "On/Off" switch stuck in the "Off" position. No such luck. Nothing obvious. So I closed the hood. Except it wouldn't close completely. There are two latches that keep the hood closed. The first one keeps it all the way down. The second one prevents the hood from flying up if the first one fails. The first latch was broken.

This is not good. I was willing to live with out air conditioning for a while, but I need my hood to close. On Thursday I called a local GM dealership to see if I could bring my car in for a servicing. My car is just past the basic warranty plan. I was hoping my extended warranty would cover these repairs too. Air conditioner fixes are not cheap!

When I bought it in, I told the guy I bought the extended warranty. He said the repairs should be covered, minus the deductible. "The deductible will be about $100 or $200. You could have gotten a $0 deductible, but those are usually really expensive, like over $3000."

I said "Yeah, I probably got the $100 deductible. I'm too cheap the pay an extra couple of thousand to save one hundred."

So I left my car there and went to work. He said he'd call me when he knew what was wrong, and what needed to be done to fix it. I got that call in the early afternoon. "Well, the good news is the hood latch just needed to be lubricated, so that was quick and easy. The bad news is we need to replace your air conditioner clutch compressor coil. Now, if you had gotten the extended warranty, it would just cost you the $100 deductible. As it is, it's going to cost you over a grand."

I had a mini heart attack. "I thought I did get the extended warranty."

"Are you sure? Here, let me check the GM system.......Oh yeah! I'm sorry! My mistake! You did get it. You have a $100 deductible."

"Whew!"

"Do you need wheels tonight? We're going to need to keep the car over night. We'll get you a rental for the night - covered by your warranty."

"Yes, please. I need the car to get home."

When I got home, I took out my folder with all my car purchase information. I took out the paper detailing my warranty - called Schedule A. It said I had a $0 deductible. What?! That guy said I had a $100 deductible! I'm being scammed!

Then I took out my "GM Warranty Service Plan," which is something GM sent me after the purchase of my car. It said I had a $100 deductible. Okay. What's going on?

I called GM.  I told the customer service representative that Schedule A had different information than the Service Plan.  She told me that Schedule A would be correct because that's what I bought at the dealership, and they probably made a mistake when they entered the info into the computer.  She told me to fax her Schedule A and she would fix it in the computer.  Then I could have the dealership call GM for confirmation if they wanted.  I faxed her my Schedule A and waited.

The local dealership that had my car called me to tell me about the repairs. I told them about the $0 deductible, which I had just told GM about, and that they should could call GM to confirm. She checked the computer and said she still saw that it was still a $100 deductible. She told me to get GM to call them.

So I called GM to ask if the change had been entered into the system, and if they could call the dealership to notify them of the changes. The guy at GM told me "Oh yeah, I don't know if the girl who got your Schedule A put it in the system, and she's on break now so I can't ask her. And if she did, it takes 3 business days for the update to go through."

While I wanted to tell him they have these new things called "computers" and "the Internet" that allows information to be updated and disseminated in seconds instead of days, I decided to ask him to call the dealership.

"We don't call the dealerships. If you could get them to call us, we'll happily confirm."

I'm getting dizzy from going around in circles.

"Or you could try to get them to not submit the warranty claim until Tuesday. Or, better yet, you could just pay the $100 + tax deductible now, and on Tuesday call us, and we'll cut you a cheque."

Fat chance. I don't trust companies to do that. Getting money out of companies, even large prosperous companies like GM, to give you money can be harder than plugging an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. "Look," I explained, "the dealership told me to get you to call them to explain this to them."

"Okay, what dealership did you take it to?" I told him. He put me on hold for a few minutes. He came back and said "Okay, I just spoke to the dealership, and they have the updated information, so you won't charged for anything the warranty covers."

"Thank you very much."

I have to say I thought I was going to have a hassle when I got to the dealership to pay for the car, but I didn't. I got my car back, and drove home with the air conditioning on! Oh it felt so good!

I'm Tired Of The Pressure (Part 2)

On Monday I drove in to work.  When I walked out I saw one of my tires was looking a little low.  Sometimes the tires just look low, but they're not.  I decided it would be a good idea to check the pressure just in case.  I did.  It was low.  Of course, when I was checking the pressure I noticed something was lodged into the treads.  A nail!

I managed to get my car into Canadian Tire (where I bought the tires) where they took out the nail and fixed the tire.

If this blog post is causing you deja vu, that's because I blogged about something similar last week.  In real life, these two incidents were about a month apart.  That's right.  Two nails in two tires within a month!

I'm Tired Of The Pressure

One day shortly after I got home from work, Wendy was outside. She came in and yelled at me to check my tires. One of them looked flat.

Sure enough, when I went outside it was looking pretty low. I got out my tire pressure gauge and checked. As I bent down I saw something stuck in the treads. It looked like a little piece of metal. I started to push it, thinking it was just stuck. As I did, I heard the "psssssssst" of a deflating tire, and I saw the threads of a screw coming through the rubber of the tire!

The time was 5:30. I tried calling the dealership to see if it was something they could repair, and, if so, make an appointment for the next day. They close at 5:30. I couldn't get through.  There was no guarantee of an appointment the next day. I checked the 14 day forecast to see if it would be going above 15 degrees much. Thankfully, it wasn't. I had an hour of daylight left. I scrambled and got my winter tires on in just over an hour.

When I got the tires on, I checked the pressure. 3 of the tires were right about where they should be - within 1 psi. One of them was down 20 psi! Great! Now I have to keep an eye on that tire all winter.

It's been a few weeks now. So far so good.

Take A Light Brake

Where were we? Oh yeah. Last I wrote, the McQueen household was really busy, and they had to take their car in to the garage for the third time in four weeks.

Since then, Jane, Bruce, and now Robin, have gone to school. Wendy and Jack are emtpy-nesters with the exception of me. I'm experiencing only-child status.

Before the kids left - about a week or two after the McQueens had their car brakes fixed, they noticed the brake lights weren't working! You can't have that! Back to the garage they went, with me following close enough behind so that no one would get in between and accidentally rear-end them, all the while watching them close enough so that I wouldn't rear-end them!

I think that's 4 times in 5 or 6 weeks. Ouch.

That was back in August. I'm writing this in October, and I'm happy to say that they haven't had any car troubles since. I, on the other hand.....well, we'll save that for a further post.

Another Busy/Regular Weekend at the McQueens

Some work places have a sign that says "It's been ____ days since our last accident." I think The McQueens could have a similar sign: "It's been ___ hours since our last guest."

On Friday I got home to find two cars parked outside our house. They belonged to this couple who are friends with Jack and Wendy. They decided to bring food over for us. They brought the main course and dessert. The main course was delicious. The dessert, however, was this opaque green stuff with brown crumbs in it. I won't go into any details, but I didn't feel good after dinner. And after Jane's sickness last week (Jane had a stomach flu that was supposed to last for several days), I started getting worried. The next morning I felt fine. I was told that the brown crumblies were bran muffins. So, that explains that! I felt much better.

After dinner on Friday night, as we were watching Jeopardy!, a neighbour, Lois, was out for a walk and saw all the cars outside our house. She thought "The McQueens must have company!" So she went to M&M Meats and got some food and brought it over for us!

When the company left, I went to bed, at which point Jane and Robin each had a guest over. Thankfully I didn't hear them. I was completely oblivious.

I got up on Saturday morning and sat in the art studio reading. I saw another neighbour, Sol, and his daughter, walking in front of the house. They stopped by, intending on a 15 minute visit. The next thing you know, Sol's wife was over. She brought corn on the cob. We made the food that Lois brought over on Friday night. Six hours after the beginning of the "15 minute visit", Sol and his family left.

Finally, when all the guests left on Saturday I was able swim for a bit, sit around enjoying the weather, and do some reading. Then Wendy came out with the phone. It was for me. It was the worship coordinator from Blackbelt Baptist. Somehow he found out I was a drummer. Blackbelt was without a drummer the following morning. I was being asked. I said "yes."

It was great to be back on the drums. And these were _real_ drums!!! Not those electric deals! I used real sticks, not brushes or anything! I was worried I might be playing too loud. But no one said anything. In fact, the first person to talk to me afterwords complimented me on my playing and told me his son played drums, but "unlike you, my son plays really loudly."

Acoustic drums are a bit of a double-edged sword. When you play on electric drums, and the volume is kept at a reasonable volume, the other musicians don't hear you all that loudly. Without that loud "thump thump thump" in their ear, they tend to keep their own timing - which probably stinks. Keeping and setting time is the job of the drummer. Acoustic drums, being louder by nature, give that "thump thump thump" that keeps the other musicians on your time. But, if your timing stinks, theirs will too. So, as a drummer, you need to have a good sense of time.

I was completely out of practice. Not having used a metronome in a while, my timing stunk. I decided to go home and spend time with my metronome every day just in case I got to play drums again. When I got home I found my metronome. After about 15 years, it was pooched and needed to be replaced. D'oh!

I spent most of Sunday, reading, swimming, and enjoying the sun. Jane had her boyfriend over for the day. It was relaxing, but still too hot and humid to take a much-needed nap.

Oh! And the McQueen's car brake lights weren't working. So, we had to take it to the garage again last night! For those keeping track, that's 3 times at the garage in 4 weeks.

It may sound like a busy weekend, but it was just a typical weekend at the McQueen residence.

When It Rains, It Pours

Yesterday was a bad day. It was Saturday morning. Usually I take a long walk in the morning across Embrun and back. I stop in at Euphoria, a smoothie shop, for a pretzel and coffee on my way back home. I try to walk 70 000 steps per week. I was way behind yesterday morning. I was full of energy. Instead of stopping at the other end of Embrun, I decided to keep going.

I was well into Russell when it started to rain. Then it stopped. Whew! I wasn't prepared for that! I decided I had gone far enough. I turned around to return home. Then the rain started again. But this time it wasn't just a little smattering. It was a torrential downpour. It didn't take long before I was soaked all the way though. My shoes are still drying!

The walk was about 14 kilometres total. It took two hours.

I thought I had a bad time. Then I got home.

I walked in the door. There was Jane. She was not happy. Just as it started to rain, she was driving out of Embrun when the car died! She lost the engine and the electrics. The brakes didn't work, or at least as well as they should have. She couldn't put on her four-way flashers. She just prayed she didn't hit anyone as she rolled through a 4-way stop.

She tried calling me on my cell. With the rain I didn't hear my phone. She called home. Of course, they didn't have a car. She had it. I was in Russell and about an hour's walk away from home. Even if she had gotten ahold of me, I couldn't have done anything. Jack called a friend who was able to come get her. Bruce biked up to where she was. Somehow they got the car home.

So now they don't have a car. Hopefully it's something that can be fixed easily and cheaply. I'll keep you posted.

---

UPDATE: It was some electronic chip. They dropped the car off at a garage on Sunday night. It was fixed by Tuesday.


On the following Sunday, I took my car to church. The McQueens were going to take theirs. On the way I got a phone call from the McQueens. The brakes stopped working. The car would be in the garage again! Well, as my driving instructor said to me: "Thems the brakes, kid."

My Car, My Hassles (Part 5)

I think it's time for an update on my car situation. For those of you new to this blog, you might want to read my previous four posts on my car-buying adventures, starting with Post 1.

Let's see, where were we. My car is in Ontario. It's been registered in Ontario. I have paid the Ontario provincial tax as well as the Nova Scotian provincial tasks.

Edgar is still dead.

When I left you in Part 4 I had sent in a form to the CRA to get my Nova Scotian provincial tax money back. The only thing the form requested from me was that I fill in the form, and send the original bill of sale with the form. I did that.

I sent the form to the CRA on May 4.

Four months later on August 16 I received a letter from the CRA entitled "Notice of (Re)Assessment GST/HST Rebate Application". They rejected my application for a rebate because I did not send in proof that the vehicle has been moved from Nova Scotia to Ontario.

It makes sense that they would want to see proof of movement. But, as the Bible says, "Ask and ye shall receive." (Matthew 7:7). But the CRA didn't ask. Until now. So I had to resubmit my rebate application, this time with proof that I registered the car in Ontario.

Oy.

On December 4 I received a letter from the CRA saying "We got your request for a (re)assessment, and we are looking at it. We will send you the results in another letter."

It seems to me that it would save time, and money to skip that step, and just send me the results. But, that's just me.

I'm still awaiting the results. I'll let you know what happens next.

UPDATE:
On December 14, over 8 months since this whole fiasco began, I received a cheque from CRA to reimburse my Nova Scotian tax.

That closes this story. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and way more than I enjoyed living it. The morale of the story: Don't buy a car in a province other than the one in which you live.

My Car, My Hassles (Part 4)

So where were we?

In last week's post the car was brought to Ontario and I am now in possession of it. I have a 30 day Nova Scotian trip permit allowing me to drive around. I have yet to register my car in Ontario. I found out that in order to get my Nova Scotian tax back, I have to apply to the CRA. This could take upwards of two months. They want my original Bill of Sale.

Edgar and Milo have something in common: they're both dead. And, for a change, instead of Chloe downloading schematics to Jack, Morris downloaded some schematics to Chloe.

So I'm ready to go and register my car with the MTO. So one day I leave work and head straight there. I take my number and wait. When I'm called up I explain the situation. The worker looks at my driver's licence, bill of sale, and all other pertinent documentation. She notices my birthday is coming up in a couple of months and asks if I'd like to renew my plates so they won't have to be renewed until next year.

Sure, why not?

Then she notices my driver's licence expires soon and asks if I'd like to renew that while I'm there.

Sure, why not?

The list of things I'm doing there, and therefore paying for, keeps piling up. But I might as well take care of it all in one shot. She takes my picture, gives me a temporary licence and tells me the real one will arrive in a few weeks. (Somehow, they can give you a photo licence in about 20 minutes in Nova Scotia, yet it takes Ontario weeks.)

She looks at my bill of sale, and tells me how much tax she'll be charging me. Fair enough. She gives me the final bill and I pay for it. She gives my plates, and even a couple of screw drivers so I can put the plates on my car. Then she informs me the trip permit given to me by the dealership was not valid outside of Nova Scotia. (Not what an earlier MTO employee told me.) But it doesn't matter now. I have the real plates. The car is registered and insured.

I head out to the car and put the rear plate on. In order to put the front plate on I had to first put a plate-holder onto the front of the car. The dealership gave me one of these plate-holders, including instructions on how to attach it. I read the instructions. "Put rivets here and here, and screw onto car there." I'm looking at the rivets and wondering how I get them to where they're supposed to be. I figure the Saturn dealership in Ottawa will know. So I call them.

"Oh, you'll need a rivet gun to attach the plate holder. Do you have a rivet gun?"

"No."

"Okay, come in tomorrow. We can do that for you."

So now I have to drive around without a front licence plate on. I wonder if I'll get pulled over? Why couldn't Saturn in Nova Scotia have done this, knowing I'd be out of province? Why couldn't the instructions have mentioned the need for a rivet gun?

The next day I start filling out the form to get my Nova Scotian tax refunded. But something odd is happening. None of the numbers are working out. There is no number on the bill of sale which when multiplied by 14% gives the amount of tax I paid in Nova Scotia. I'm very confused. I call Saturn in Nova Scotia and ask them to help me understand the bill of sale. It would figure that the person I needed to talk to is off sick, and it's Friday. But the person I did talk to was able to help me.

Here is the problem. The numbers on the Bill of Sale are out of order. The order they're listed is not the order in which they're calculated.

This is the order they're listed:

1. Price of car


2. Sales tax


3. License or Transfer fee


4. Extended Warranty


5. Tire Environmental Fee


6. Balance Due (Whatever that means.


7. Balance Forward (I figure this and the Balance Due is because the Balance Due is the last thing in that column, and the Balance Forward is the first in the next column. It's the same number.)


8. Less deposit


9. Balance Owing


10. Admin Fee


11. Tire Warranty


12. Total Financed (AKA: Final price. That which I owe them.)

This is the order in which they're calculated:

1. Cost of the car


2. Extended Warranty


3. Tire Environmental Fee


4. Admin Fee


5. Tire Waranty

Take all those things, add them up, and that gives a non-taxed price of the car. Then add the 14% tax on that number. And then add the License or Transfer Fee. Subtract the deposit, then you have the "Total Financed" cost, that which I owe them.

You may have noticed things were a little out of order. See, first they calculated tax, then added the "License or Transfer Fee", but when they listed it on the Bill of Sale they listed the tax second! They listed the "License or Transfer Fee" third.

As a result it's very confusing. The actual cost of the car on which the tax is calculated is not shown anywhere on the Bill of Sale. No wonder the person at the MTO was confused. I still am. (I was hoping she would know better, what with it being her job and all to do that sort of thing.)

So the next day as I was trying to figure out how much tax to get back from Nova Scotia, and comparing it to the tax I paid in Ontario I noticed something was wrong. The tax I paid in Ontario was calculated on the cost of the car plus the Nova Scotian tax. I was paying tax on tax. Worse! I was paying tax on tax that I was going to be getting back!

So I call the MTO. They tell me that once they collect the tax it's out of their hands and to get a refund I need to talk to the Ontario Ministry of Finance. So I call them. They point me towards a form to fill out and send in. Oh yes, and they will need my Bill of Sale.

"@#$@! Will you need the original?"

"No. A copy will do. Why would we need the original?"

"The CRA wanted the original so someone couldn't try to use the same receipt to get a refund multiple times on the same purchase."

"Yeah, but a fake would be easy to make."

"You should work for the CRA."

So then later on in the week I receive a letter from the Ontario Ministry of Finance making sure I was being honest and paying all the taxes I needed to. For some reason I laugh. I find this somehow ironic. I'm not sure how. Maybe it's because they owe me?

Anyway, this brings us to the end of the car stories, I hope. I have yet to receive any refunds, but it's still early. If anything else goes wrong I'm sure I'll write all about it here.

---

UPDATE: Something did go wrong. I wrote all about it in My Car, My Hassles (Part 5).

My Car, My Hassles (Part 3)

So, where were we?

The new car I bought is still in Nova Scotia. I am in Ontario. I am trying to register the car. I am not actually any farther along than I was in last week's episode due to the gross incompetence of certain government workers (with the one possible exception of buck-passing. That seems to be a core-competency. They're quite good at that.)

Edgar is still dead. Milo has a hole in his head.

I had been sent through various levels of the MTO, then to The Ontario Ministry of Finance, then to the Nova Scotia Department of Finance and back to the MTO in a futile attempt to get my Nova Scotia tax money back.

On my second call to the Registry in Ontario I was told to call the Ministry of Finance. At this point my blood started to boil. I told them "I already called them. They sent me to the Nova Scotia Department of Finance, who told me to call you. They told me if I bought a car in Ontario and registered in in Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia could get the tax from Ontario without me having to do anything. They suspected, as do I, that it wouldn't be any different to do things in reverse. I mean, why would it only work one way? Why would Nova Scotia work out that deal with Ontario, only to have Ontario not work out a similar deal with Nova Scotia?"

"I don't know anything about that. You'll have to talk to the Ontario Ministry of Finance about that."

GHAA!

So, I check the interweb. Somewhere on the MTO website there was something about calling the CRA. So I called them. Getting hold of them was a task in and of itself. The number I was calling was busy. Usually call centers don't give busy signals, they answer and put you in a queue. So this made me wonder if I was calling the right number. I called around different CRA numbers until I finally got someone working in the Child Benefit program. I was given a different number to call, which I did, then got transfered elsewhere. The person I got talked to had to pass me to her supervisor, so was able to help. He sent me to an online form that I had to print out and send to Charlottetown, PEI with my original Bill of Sale, not a copy, with no guarantee of them returning it. But I needed the Bill of Sale to register the car.

I asked her why a copy would not do. She said that way people wouldn't keep sending in copies to get tax returns for the same purchases. I asked why they didn't keep track of purchases somehow, like with cars, a VIN? Receipts are easy enough to fake with today's technology, surely they could think of a better way to prevent fraud than to make people give up original receipts. I suggested that policy be changed. She told me to write my local MP as the policy was written into law.

It then occurred to me that a problem with doing business with governments is that policies are often times written into law, so they have to followed, even when they make no sense. At least, in the private sector if a policy doesn't make sense, exceptions can be made.

(If I were prime minister, the first law I would try to have passed is that no policy or law would be enforceable unless the reasons for that policy or law were readily available.)

So, I didn't fill out the form right away for two reasons. First, I would do that when I was sure I wouldn't need the Bill of Sale anymore (after I registered the car) and second, the printer wasn't working.

In the meantime I had gotten the car insured, and my dad had driven the car up to Ontario for me, and I gave him his car back. I had been told by the MTO head office that the trip permit given to me by the dealership in Nova Scotia would be legal, so I didn't bother getting an Ontario Trip permit.

And, again I see this post is getting too long, so I'll have leave you hanging here. So join me next week, same car day, same car blog.

My Car, My Hassles (Part 2)

So, where we we?

I bought the car in Nova Scotia. The car is in Nova Scotia. I am in Ontario. The car is uninsured, and unregistered. Edgar is still dead, and now Milo is too.

Recall from last week's post that I had bought a brand new car in Nova Scotia and needed to register it in Ontario.

When I bought the car in Nova Scotia I had to, of course, pay the Nova Scotian RST. Nova Scotia tax works a little differently than Ontario tax. In Ontario you see the price of a product, and then you add 6% GST and add 8% PST that's added on. Both percentages are calculated on the list price, so you're not paying tax on the tax. So you pay a total of 14% tax.

In Nova Scotia there's only one tax called the HST. The HST is a 14% tax charged on the list price. I'm not 100% sure, but I think all of that tax is collected by the CRA. They, then, break it down into 6% GST and 8% PST and give that back to the Nova Scotia Department of Finance.

When you register a new car in a province other than where you bought it, you must pay the RST in the province where you're registering. So, having already paid the Nova Scotian tax, I now have to pay the Ontario tax. On a brand new car, that's not a small amount.

When I bought the car I was told by the dealership that Ontario and Nova Scotia probably had something worked out where I wouldn't have to recover the taxes myself, but the governments could work it out for themselves.

So I went on a mission to call the MTO to get the information I needed. I needed to know what I needed to do to get my car registered;

1. Would I need an emissions test?


2. Would the car need to be safetied?


3. What documents would I need to register the car?


4. How can I recover the Nova Scotian Tax?


5. Do I register a car before I insure it, or the other way around?


6. Also, when I bought the car, the dealership gave me a temporary permit until I could register the car. It was good for 30 days. Would I need to get another trip permit from Ontario, or would the dealership's permit be good enough?

I went to the MTO website to find their number. There wasn't one single number. I could either call a private registration office, a regional office, or the head office. I called them in that order.

The private registration office in Embrun was useless. First, I was greeted with a French computer telling me what buttons to push for what options. Funny. I thought Ontario was an officially English province and I should have been greeted with English first, with the option to switch to French. Not t'other way around. Anyway...

When I finally got to a MTO employee I asked my questions. She told me I would not need an emissions test, but I would need the car to be safetied. I thought this sounded wrong, because it was a brand new car. There were 4 km on it! And it had just passed the Nova Scotian safety inspection. She told me she didn't know about Nova Scotian tax, but she couldn't do anything for me, except that she had to collect the Ontarian tax. I didn't get any further with her because she was a front-line worker, not a telephone answerer and she put me on hold. So I hung up and called the regional office.

The person working at the regional office told me I would not need an emissions test, but I might need a safety inspection for the car, and I should call the head office to find out. So I called the head office.

They told me the car would not need a safety inspection because it was brand new. I told her what I was told by the Registry, and she gave me her name and told me to tell them to call her if they wanted me to get the car safetied. Okay. Good. but how do I get my Nova Scotia tax money back? She told me that I would have to contact the Ontario Ministry of Finance.

So I called the Ministry of Finance and they told me that they had nothing to do with that. They only collected the Ontario tax, and I would need to contact the Nova Scotia Department of Finance.

The Nova Scotia Department of Finance said "if someone were to buy a new car in Ontario and paid PST there and then came to Nova Scotia to register it here, he would NOT have to pay PST here when he registered it. Nova Scotia would recover the PST from Ontario through its own ways." They went on to say that they couldn't be sure, but they suspected it was the same in Ontario, only reversed.

They asked who I had spoken with, and I told them the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario. They said "don't talk to them but to the Registry of Motor Vehicles. He says the front line people will know." I guess he doesn't know the Registry is part of the Ministry of Transportation.

So, anyway, he was telling me to call a front line worker with the MTO which, if you recall, was the first place I called.

I had just come full circle.

Well, I can see this blog entry is long enough. So, I will have to pause here and leave you hungering for more. So join me next week, same car day, same car blog.

My Car, My Hassles (Part 1)

As many of you know, I recently bought a car. I will now begin out outline exactly how big of a pain this process has become.

As with everything in my life, it turns out to be a long story, so I will have to tell the story over multiple posts. I will try to make each post as exciting as an episode of 24!

Here's the situation. I'm an Ontario resident, but I am from Nova Scotia. My family is from Nova Scotia. I got my driver's licence in Nova Scotia when I was 16, and have been on my parent's insurance, in Nova Scotia, since then. Then when I moved to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, I had my licence changed to an Ontarian Licence. But I stayed on my parent's insurance policy.

For the last year my dad had lent me his Saturn(s) until I got on my feet and could get my own car. I went home at Easter time when dad told me two things which translated into "You need to get a car soon!" The first thing he told me was that our insurance company wanted to know when I was moving back to Nova Scotia. My licence number on my parent's insurance policy was an Ontario driver's licence number. So, my dad told them "Well, he recently got a job in Ottawa, so he won't be moving back to Nova Scotia in the foreseeable future." So they removed me from the policy, saying that they would give me a letter of experience if I needed one for the next year saying I have been insured.

So here I am, uninsured. Plus, Dad was going to come up to Ottawa, take back the car he had lent me to help my sister move home from North Bay for the summer. So I was going to lose my car soon. I needed to buy a car, and get insured.

The thing about buying a Saturn is that Saturn wants the process of buying a car to be as pain-free as possible. There is no haggling. You pay what the sticker says. Low pressure. I like that.

Of course, I did have a high pressure sale. Not so much from the Saturn people, but from circumstances.

Saturn was offering $0 down, 0% financing on their new cars. And, Saturn of Dartmouth was having some sales the week I was home. Now, the $0 down, 0% financing offer ended on Tuesday, April 11. I was coming back to Ottawa on the 12th. So by the time I could come back to Ottawa and look for other vehicles, the sale would be over. We found this out on Sunday, the 10th. Everything is closed on Sundays in Nova Scotia. That left me Monday and Tuesday to test-drive and make a decision.

On Monday I went around test driving different vehicles. Saturn made me a good offer on their car, with their sales, etc. I knew it would be a bit of a pain to transfer the car to Ontario, plus I wouldn't be able to drive it off the lot if I bought in Nova Scotia. For one thing it wouldn't be ready by time time I left, and another thing, I had no car insurance! But I was saving a ton of dough by buying it there and then.

I wondered if Saturn in Ottawa could match, or better, the offer made to me by Saturn of Dartmouth. If they could I would have bought over the phone. So I called Saturn in Ottawa and started to explain the deal I was getting from Saturn of Dartmouth. The salesman interrupted me and said "Tell you what. This sounds complicated, so here's my email address. Write me an email and I'll let you know either later today, or first thing tomorrow (Tuesday) morning."

I wrote up the email and sent it off to him. I didn't hear back that day. The next morning I didn't get a reply. But I did have to go to my parent's insurance broker to deal with insurance issues and request a letter of experience. When I got home early that afternoon, the email still hadn't arrived. So I called Saturn in Ottawa back and got the guy I talked to the day before. He was having email troubles. He had sent me a reply, but I never got it. So he asked me to send mine again and he'd reply right away again. Unfortunately, he wasn't free to talk at that moment because he was in a meeting that would last until 4:00pm (5:00pm Nova Scotian time.) So I waited until 5:30 and still hadn't received a reply. So I called back. At 5:30, I had two and a half hours before Saturn of Dartmouth closed and the sweet deal was over. The man I had dealt with had left for the day. So I talked to the next available salesman. I requested an answer right away because I didn't have time for email hassles.

I explained the situation to him, and unfortunately Saturn in Ottawa couldn't match the sales. I was going to save lots of money by buying in Nova Scotia. Then, in three weeks when dad was going to fly to Ontario, instead he would drive my car and we would do a car swap. He would give me my car, and I would return his car to him.

I asked Saturn of Dartmouth about registration and tax issues. Saturn of Dartmouth didn't know for sure, but said when I registered the car in Ontario the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario would probably be able to recover the RST directly from the Nova Scotian government.

So I decided to buy the car in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. I got a blue 2007 Saturn Ion 2 midlevel. I bought the car at about 7:00-7:30 on the Tuesday night. Another 30 - 60 minutes, and the deal would have been over. While I wasn't able to drive the car off the lot, I did drive it around the lot. The next morning I got on a plane , flew back to Ottawa, and let the hassles begin, which I will get to next week.

Find out what happens in next week's exciting episode of "My Car, My Hassles". Same car day, same car blog.

My Side Of The Story

Yesterday morning in church Pastor Jack said something from the pulpit that involved me, and I didn't have a chance to explain my side of the story to the congregation. So this is my side of the story.

Saturday was the first warm day since the January thaw. RRRRRoll Up The RRRRRRim is in full swing. I'm putting away my sweaters. The days are getting longer. We just set our clocks ahead. Spring is on it's way!

Now, I was out for most of the day on Saturday. When I got back on Saturday night the McQueen's cars were parked side by side in the drive way. I had to block one of them in. Since the Toyota doesn't have the insurance sticker on it yet, it wasn't going anywhere so I decided to block it in.

The last time it snowed out and the plow went by and created a snow-bank. We never cleared it away. We just tried patting it down with the cars as we drove over it. But due to the warm weather (+2 degrees) and the humidity on Saturday the bank at the end of the driveway ended up freezing over. It's also higher at the edges of the driveway than the center.

I backed into the driveway but when my rear wheels got over the bank the car stopped and wouldn't go back anymore. The wheels just spun on the ice. So I pulled out and tried again. Same results. I tried again. Same results. I tried a fourth time, giving more juice. The problem is that if I gave too much juice I'd go crashing into the Toyota, which we just got back from the shop on Thursday night. But this attempt worked. I gave it enough juice to get all four wheels over the hump, but not enough to hit the Toyota. As soon as the car stopped, the front slid to the right putting my car at an angle.

I knew this might cause problems for the Intrepid. But I checked, and it looked like the Intrepid had more than enough room to get around me. And it would have, except for what happened on Sunday morning.

Apparently, the warm weather on Sunday morning caused the bank to melt enough to make it wet and slushy, but not enough for it to shrink and/or go away. So, when the McQueens went to leave that morning, in order to get around my car they had to drive through the bank. The wheel sunk in and got stuck. Given the amount of (wet) ice in the driveway, they wanted to be careful, otherwise they would hit my car. Then some people came walking by, one of whom was built like a truck, and helped them push the car out of the driveway.

One of the disadvantages of living with a Pastor of a church is that if you make a mistake, you may hear about it (along with everyone else) from the pulpit. However the advantage is that when he uses one of us in a sermon (by name) he owes us 25 cents. The disadvantage, as I found out yesterday, is it's a fictitious 25 cents.

So, to sum up, I blocked them into the driveway in an effort to not smoke their car. But this made it hard for them to not smoke my car. Normally my parking job wouldn't be an issue because 1) I am normally a very good backer-upper, staying well out of their way; 2) They normally could have driven over the bank except for the exact weather conditions that existed over the past 24 hours; and 3) being on two worship teams at church I end up having to leave earlier than them. In fact there's only one Sunday per month when I don't have to go in early, and, consequently, can sleep in. This happened to be that Sunday.

I'm sorry, the McQueens.

UPDATE: Apparently, Pastor Jack didn't actually say my name from the pulpit. It just felt like he did because of his tone, and he was looking right at me. There goes my fictitious 25 cents.

The End of the Car Tales....For Now

There are no more major car tales of which to tell for now. Surely something will happen at some point. Cars don't stay in good working condition forever.

In fact, this year in January, on Bruce's birthday, both cars broke down. The brakes on the Tercel broke down, and something else happened to the Intrepid. I can't remember what. I wasn't there. I was in Sault Ste. Marie in school.

Then the cars got fixed. A couple of weeks later the brakes on the Tercel broke down again! It turns out the mechanic made a mistake or forgot to do something, or something. So anyway, they call a tow-truck. The tow-truck breaks down and they need to call a tow-truck for the tow-truck!

It seems being in close proximity on the McQueens has ill effects on automobiles. The only time our Saturn (belonging to the McKay family) has had any problems has been during the short time it was at the McQueen's. Last summer the latch that keeps the hood down broke, and the bearings in one of the wheels wore out. Both at the same time. Thankfully the car was still under warranty.

So, that's it for the car stories. But fear not! There's plenty of other stories to tell. Stay tuned!

The New Car

After getting the Intrepid, and loosing the Taurus not much happened with the cars for the rest of the semester. Well, packing 5 people into the back was interesting, but the Intrepid has held up pretty well.

Soon after I left for the Winter semester, they got into 3 accidents. The first one involved getting rear-ended, which caused minimal damage to the car, but caused most of the family to get well acquainted with the local chiropractor for months to come.

The second accident involved an icy corner, and a relatively shallow ditch. That was more of a pain in the neck than anything else.

The third involved another rear-ending, but this time at a low speed. But when almost everyone in the car already has a bad back due to a previous rear-ending, it just compunds the problem.

Things seemed to have calmed down quite a bit for a while. The following summer, summer of 05, around mid-August they were given a Toyota Tercel. It was driven to the house by the previous owners, and the keys dropped off. When Pastor Jack, then later brother Jack, got in the car to try to start it, the key did nothing. The engine didn't even try to turn over. So, now we had to figure out what was wrong! We had the fool car for one day and it was already broken! It had been working. The previous owner drove it here, didn't they?

So after discussing this with Jack and Jack, and them telling me how it wouldn't start I, being a man (despite what Slippery Pete might think), had to give it a try myself. I went out to the car, put the key in the ignition, turned the key, and nothing. Hmmmmmmm..... I tried it again, and nothing. So I sat there looking at the dashboard, and I noticed an oval hole with three metal connectors inside, with a nub on the oval, and a red light above it. I noticed on the keychain there was an oval plastic thingy-deal with a nub on one side, and three metal connectors. It looked like the perfect fit. So I stuck the thing on the keychain into the hole in the dash for a second or two, and the red light went out. So I put the key into the ignition, turned it, and the engine came on. I drove around the block.

When I got back Jack and Jack were out on the front lawn wondering how I just did that! I jumped out and yelled "In your face, Slippery Pete!!!"

The Final Death of the Taurus

About 2 weeks after the radiator pipe incident Pastor Jack, Craig, Bruce and I were at church for an evening service followed by a College and Career Bible study. Afterwords we left the church and started the drive home in the Taurus. We got to the first set of lights where we would turn from a side street onto a mian street. We were waiting for the light to turn green. When it did, Jack put his foot on the gas, and we heard a big clunk. But the car wouldn't go. It was in Drive, the engine would rev, but the wheels wouldn't turn. We turned on the four-way flashers, waved the cars behind us on ahead.

We found that we could drive in reverse. So, Jack drove in reverse back to the church, with Craig, Bruce and I running a head of/behind the car to clear any traffic that may be coming. Jack parked the Ford beside the dead minivan in the church parking lot. Two dead vehicles, dying within two months of each other, sitting side by side in the parking lot, both with bad transmissions. I'm not sure if it's irony, or just a bad coincidence.

For the remaining months of our coop term, Craig and I piled into the 5 seater intrepid with the 5 members of the McQeen family. 7 people in a 5 seater was always uncomfortable. We all got a little closer. Of course, it really only counted on weekends. During the week Jack took Craig and I to the bus stop, and picked us up there afterwords.

Things Get A Little Hot Under the Hood

About a week after we got the Intrepid, as Craig and I were driving the Taurus to the bus stop, the engine temperature was rising and steam was coming out from under the hood. When we got to the bus stop I got out and opened up the hood and heard a loud hissing sound. It was really dark so I still couldn't see what was going on.

We decided to deal with it at the end of the day, so we went to work. When we returned to tbe bus stop late that afternoon we were able to see under the hood better. What had happened was that one of the pipes that carries the radiator fluid had sprung a leak. Therefor the engine was not being cooled. That was causing the engine to rapidly heat up. The fluid was shooting out the hole and hitting the engine. That's where the steam was coming from.

So, that night Jack, Craig, and I filled up several 2L pop bottles with water and drove out to the bus stop. We filled the radiator up with water. We drove back towards the house, having to stop every kilometer or two to let the car cool down, and fill it with more water. (The bus stop is about 12 km from the house.)

Eventually we got the car home. The next day or two the Taurus was taken to a local shop. When the mechanic applied a test to the radiator pipes, the other one sprung a leak. Shortly thereafter, the pipes were replaced with hoses, the radiator fluid was replenished. The McQueens were back to having two cars. Craig and I were growing cynical about the reliability of the Taurus.

The Cars - Part 2

A week or two after the Slippery Pete incident, Pastor Jack had opportunity to get a 2000 Intrepid. But he had to go to London, Ont. to get it. He was able to get a ride to London with somebody, and he would drive the Intrepid back.

It was also discovered that Craig and I could catch a bus at the Vars/Emrun exit that would take us downtown. We could transfer to another bus that would take us to work. The bus would get to our stop at 6:20 in the morning. This meant that I would get up at 5:15 and Craig would get up at 5:30. We would leave the house at 6:00. The drive to the bus stop is about 20 minutes. This would mean that Craig and I wouldn't be overloading the car on the trip into the city.

The morning that Jack was going to London to get the Intrepid he was going to drive everyone to work and school. After work Craig and I would go to the church, which is where the car was, and pick everyone up and drive them home. However, just before they got to Wendy's work, a tire blew out on the Ford. They put the donut on and got the thing to Canadian Tire. The attendant asked if they would like an oil change. Jack said something about having time, and said "Go ahead and do the oil change."

So he and Bruce sat down and waited. After about 45 minutes Jack was wondering what was taking so long. He got up and asked, and it turns out that the attendant misheard, and thought he said "Don't change the oil."

However, the tire was changed, Jack went to London and got the Intrepid, and the McQueens had two cars once again. Craig and I had free run of the Taurus. But at this point I was getting a little nervous about taking it anywhere or depending on it in any way.

The Cars - Part 1

The morning Craig left Philistia I was at home at the McQueen's. Pastor Jack had gone into work. At about 10:00am the phone rang and it was him. He informed us that as he was pulling into the church parking lot the minivan had died. The transmission had died. It was going to cost a pretty penny just to get a mechanic to look it over and tell us what needed to be done. Then if it was an easy fix it was still going to cost over a grand, and if it was a hard fix than it would cost twice as much. And given the age of the car it wouldn't be worth it.

So now Craig is on his way and we've been knocked down to one car. The Ford holds six people. There would be seven of us. The fact that the Ford had a faulty alternator did not make me feel any more comfortable.

However, we figured out how we could do the morning and afternoon trip. We'd all pile into the car in the morning. We'd drive through the back street's to the assistant Pastor's house where we would drop Robin off. Robin went to a private school with the daughter of the assistant pastor. The assistant pastor lives right around the corner of that school, and the school is in a small town in between Embrun and Ottawa.

We would then drive through the back-roads to Wendy's school where she taught. At that point Craig and I would get dropped off so we could take the bus to work. Jack and Bruce would go to the church. Bruce's school was right accross the street from the church.

At the end of the day Craig and I would bus down to Billing's Bridge (a mall and major bus stop) where we would meet Jack and Bruce, then drive to Wendy's school, then off to pick up Robin. Then we would go home.

On the first day of work it started out alright. But on the way home Craig and I met up with the family at Billing's Bridge. They had picked up Robin, so she was with us too. We got into the car and Pastor Jack turned the key. But the engine wouldn't turn over. He turned again. Still nothing. He turned a third time, and the engine started. We drove across the parking lot and stopped to get gas at the station there.

But afterwords he could not start the engine. But there was a mechanic's shop kitty-corner to Billing's Bridge. Pastor Jack ran accross to get him. The mechanic that came over and looked at the car and tested the battery. He said we'd have to get the car over to his shop. We would have to push. One person would have to steer, another person would have to stop traffic, and everyone else would have to push. The mechanic, who became known to us as Slippery Pete, was yelling stuff out. He had a pretty thick Arabic accent. He yelled something at me I didn't understand. All of a sudden I could understand him, or perhaps he just spoke more clearly, and he yelled "What are you? Are you a man? Or are you a woman?!" (Of course, this caused me to be the laughing stock of the family for months to come.)

I offered to be a steerer. Pastor Jack went out to stop traffic. Now, this was at the corner of Bank and Riverside, two very busy, major streets in Ottawa. This was during rush hour. Lots of traffic, but on the upside, no one was driving insanely fast.

So, we pushed the car out the wrong way of a one-way entrance, left onto Bank, across Riverside, and into the garage. The mechanic, who was clearly Arabic told us his name was Peter. Jack asked him his last name. "Uhhhhhh.....Jason."

Rrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Sippery Pete kept the car overnight to replace the alternator. By this time of night all of the car rental places were closed. So we bussed it down to the airport and rented an SUV there. We picked up Wendy and went home. The whole time a turkey was in the oven. Of course the water in the pan had all evaporated by the time we got home. So, at about 11:00pm we had dinner. The driest turkey you could imagine. (As opposed to the water-logged turkey of Thanksgiving, but that's another story.)

The next morning we all went to work/school. At work I called Pastor Jack to see if he had gotten the car back from Slippery Pete. He said that it turned out that it wasn't the alternator like we thought, but the solenoids on the battery needed replacing. They were so bad that the battery wasn't getting charged by the alternator. We were happy with the diagnosis because it was a lot cheaper than a brand new alternator.

So, we got the car, and drove home. The next day we went to work, and as Craig and I were waiting for Jack and Bruce at Billing's Bridge. Instead of the blue Taurus, a white Ford F-150 pulled up. Craig and I jumped in and Jack said "Don't ask."

Well, see, what happened was that aside from the battery solenoids being worn out, it turned out that it was the alternator after all! So the battery had died on us again. The car was parked beside the dead Voyager in the church parking lot.

So, on the weekend Jack went to the wrecker's and bought a used alternator for the Taurus. He installed it. But alas, it turned out to be a faulty alternator. So he had to return it and get another alternator. Finally the Ford was working. We had a working car in the family again.