Old car is the gift that keeps on taking

My oldest daughter had a wonderfully selfless idea. She got a new car and rather than sell her 2009 Toyota Camry, she decided that she wanted to give it to her younger sister.

So generous.

OK. Here’s where I need to pump the brakes slightly on this story (oh, and more on brakes later).

First of all, the Camry. She’s a good car. No complaints. The Camry entered our lives years ago when the girl needed a car but also had no money or credit with which to purchase a car.

Parents to the rescue, because this is what parents do. We lent her the money. No pressure. She paid back what she could when she could. Of the $8,075 we lent her, she was able to pay back $1,100.

That’s OK. We were glad that she was in a better position with the current car purchase. All good.

Then came the suggestion of “gifting” the 14-year-old car to her sister. It made me twist my head the way a dog does when he’s straining to understand what you’re saying.

I’ve been a car owner long enough to know that a 14-yearold car is a gift that just keeps taking.

But my kids are totally adults who are old enough to buy liquor and vote and get cats even if their parents advise strongly against it. So, if kid one wants to give a crappy car (no offence, Toyota, it’s just old) to Kid 2 and Kid 2 wants it, then that is entirely up to them and I have no say and I do not need to get involved in any way whatsoever. OK. Sure.

Except … this conversation took place back in the spring and at the time, we were going to visit Kid 2, who lives about five hours away from the rest of us. We made a gentle offer to perhaps take the old Camry to her if Kid 1 would just get the studded snow tires changed.

Well, the timing was no good for her and we were putting too much pressure on and being bad parents.

OK. We’re not getting involved anyway.

But … we suggested again that maybe, maybe, it would be easier to just sell the car and give the sister the money. That’s a nice gift. Plus, it can’t be good for ol’ Camry to just sit in the yard.

Nope. Big nope. We got stiffarmed.

Then we suggested that maybe we should just take the car since we paid for it (less $1,100).

We could sell it and make it go away and share the money with the sister. We just didn’t want the car to sit and rot. Another strong nope.

OK. We’re not getting involved anyway.

So, the car sat, with studded tires on, until the end of July.

Then Kid 1 had another awesome idea. If we just wanted to buy some rims, she could get those winter tires changed and we could deliver the car (with two sets of wheels!) to Kid 2.

OK. But we’re not getting involved.

Except … when she tried to drive the car to the garage it seized up and had to be towed.

That’s when Kid 1, with no sense of irony, looked me dead in the eye and said, “Well. We learned a difficult lesson here that you really need to drive a car regularly and not let it sit.”

She was sincere and straightfaced.

Yes. Yes, we learned a very hard lesson, didn’t we? We. Us. All of us. Us Camry co-owners.

The couple of hundred bucks for rims turned into an $800 brake repair job after which the mechanic said — no kidding — “There’s no front brakes. They’re shot.”

I said, “Well, you’ve been working on the car for a couple of days and I just paid $800plus so … uh … what?”

Apparently that $800-plus only fixed the rear brakes. You have to be specific.

So, I took the car to my regular mechanic who fixed up the front brakes for another $700plus. So all in, we paid about $1,600 to not get involved at all in this gifting of a car.

But that’s it. Kid 2 is on her own with her new old car.

OK.