Pink it's my new obsession...Pink it's my favorite crayon...

Yesterday I spent way too many hours imposing on the time and efforts of two really good friends. The boyfriend and I went to their house around noon and didn't leave until almost 11pm. We talked and ate and worked on my car... there I go with that "we" thing again. Of course, you should know by now that when I say "we worked on my car" I really mean that people with WAY MORE knowledge and skill than I, worked in it while I tried to talk their ears off and feed them. We all have our strengths. *shrug*  "We" gave Trixie her regularly scheduled oil change, replaced the radiator coolant, brake fluid and power steering fluid. I thought she drove great before this, wowza! Much smoother driving now and the brakes are more responsive too. Figured that out on the drive into work this morning (see the PSA below).  Oh and guess what?!?  Thankfully, my friends still like me & want me to come back sometime. They even indulged me in my Hello Kitty addiction by painting my valve cover PINK!!!

Edit: I totally forgot! How could I do that? This was the hardest part and HOW we ended up being able to paint the valve cover pink. We changed out the gaskets. That was not a simple process & I cannot believe I forgot to mention that we did that too.

PSA: If there's a cop on the other side of a divided highway, you do not have to slam on your brakes to see what they're doing. Doing such will cause them to possibly need to come investigate the accident you just caused. Luckily, my ride was accident free.

The last week or so has been a bit crazy, but there have been some pretty awesome developments with Trixie. Preperations for her cosmetic surgery have started in earnest. The amazing boyfriend has been smoothing out the dents and dings in her body. This process involve slots of banging out dents from inside Trixie, applying fiberglass bondo, smoothing it, waiting for it to dry, sanding it, then doing it all over again , minus the banging. It's hard work that the weather here in GA has been making slower, rain one day, sun the next, hot one day, cold the next. Still, he's made great progress and I'm very grateful to have his help.

I had resigned myself to driving around in a car that looked less than pretty for awhile, but then that awesome boyfriend of mine made it all better. All booboos need bandaids and this is even a Hello Kitty bandaid!

There are actually little things that make me smile everywhere. Like this Hello Kitty with a baloon floating away when I open my sunroof:

 To top it off, the carbon fiber arrived yesterday and he's started applying it to strategic places in my dash. My new radio is even set to display in PINK!

a 4 letter word

They make that in ____? I can have that in ____? It comes in ____? We can cover that in ____?

What 4 letter word belongs in each sentence above?

PINK!!!

Yes, anything and everything comes in pink. And if you can't find it in pink, you can get paint or carbon fiber to make it pink. Seriously. Even car stuff. There's way more pink than I ever thought. All most too much...

Trixie is better than the Batmobile!

I've always loved the Batmobile. When I was a kid, I'd watch reruns of the Batman TV show and of course the Batman movies all came out in that time too. The Batmobile was the kewlest car ever. With it's fancy fins, smooth exterior, and all kinds of tricks up it's sleeve. I especially loved it when Catwoman stole the Batmobile. I imagined that was me, wind blowing my hair, zipping through the city, not a care in the world. 

No, Trixie's not a Batmobile. She doesn't have the fancy fins, or the ability to spot a smoke screen to cover my getaway, but she does have one thing that's better than the Batmobile. Killer gas mileage! I bet the Batmobile doesn't get over 35 miles per gallon! I put 11.5 gallons in my first fill up of Trixie's tank & I'm at 393 miles and the light hasn't come on yet. I've still got about an 8th of a tank. So, maybe she's not really better than the Batmobile, but that gas mileage sure makes up for the lack of a silly smoke screen in my book!

What I want Vs. What I need.

One of the compelling reasons that I purchased Trixie is because she's a common car make/model. There are lots of parts available and people who service Honda Civics. TCBT (Wait, you need to know what TCBT means.  The Car Before Trixie. Funny, right? No? LOL *shrug*) was a Suzuki Aerio SX. It looks kinda like a Honda Fit, but even Suzuki repair shops and dealerships had issues maintaining her and when I had an accident, parts were almost impossible to find hence my need to find a new car & the acquisition of Trixie.  When it comes to what I need, Trixie has most of it. Reliability, safety, good price, good future (when it comes to repair costs), good gas mileage, etc. She also has some features that I enjoy that fall in between want & need, like a sunroof and the fact that she's a coupe rather than a sedan.One of the joys of purchasing a used car is that as you fix/replace things you get to make it your own. I didn't expect how long it would take for some of these things to happen. I posted last week that Trixie's battery arrived, but with the boyfriend's work schedule & mine, we've not been able to find time to switch it out. He did change a tire, and scrape off a UGA sticker for me. I got her tags and insurance. Legally she's good to go. With the 1 less used tire we put on, she's a bit safer. With out the UGA sticker, I am happier. I'm sure UGA is a fine school, but I didn't go there & I'd rather not be a moving billboard for a college I've never attended. Headlights are still on their way. New wheels and tires have been ordered, but because of the style I wanted I have to wait 30-45 days for them to arrive. Those who know me will not be surprised by my tires. Though most of you will probably shake your head and say something like "Yep, that's Nikki's car." Oh, and a new radio is on the way too. Need to get new speakers. I couldn't have done any of this without my boyfriend and he's being a big help in making those decisions of what I want vs. what I need. I needed new headlights, wanted them to be cheap, but needed to make sure they are good quality & would be bright. He's also a huge help in the want category too. He fully indulges my desire to make Trixie MY CAR. I'm one of those people, that can't be happy driving around in a light gold colored Honda Civic for long. If someone says "Oh, you have a Honda Civic? Me too!" one more time.... Once we're done with Trixie, it's more likely I'll get "My Honda Civic looks NOTHING like that." Which will definitely make me happy.

Cosmetic Surgery before pics:

The boyfriend keeps looking at Trixie and saying "oof, I didn't realize it was that bad."
I keep saying "it's ok.  It's all cosmetic." So what if Trixie isn't really pretty right now,  she will be! Here's evidence of her blemishes.  She needs a nose job, some saddlebag work & a butt lift.  In car terms,  her front bumper is all scratched up,  there's a huge scrape with some dents along her right side & her trunk has a big indentation. 
The boyfriend bought a bunch of stuff that says "Bondo" on the packages.  We'll see how she looks after a bit of body work. 

A few more important additions...

A new battery has arrived and is awaiting installation. Maybe my boyfriend and I will do it this weekend. Ok, he'll do it and I'll take pictures, hold things and offer him a glass of iced tea, but we should all know our strengths & weaknesses and work with them. Anyway, her new batter is a "High Performance AGM Powercell battery" specifically this one: http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_17902_SHURiKEN-SK-BT35.html

The concept of a battery for my car makes sense and if I think about how cheap batteries work in my remote control versus how a good battery works, I can see a benefit to a better power source than a standard battery.

This addition upped our costs by $119.

After my first commute to work this morning, on an annoyingly grey spring day here in the Atlanta, GA area, I realized the new headlights needed to be moved up on the priority list. If you don't know me, I'm pretty blind. I need good headlights. My boyfriend found a good deal on some Halo LED Projection headlights and the set (shipped) is just $118.98.

Here's the running total for the transformation of Trixie so far:

Purchase: $2200
Control Arms: $630
Battery: $119
Headlights: $119

Total: $3068

Next purchase... wheels and tires! This should be fun.

Welcome to my commute.

For my first commute to work in Trixie, I decided to make it as real/normal as possible.  In my world,  that includes a stop at Starbucks.  I got to try out her cup holders for the first time today.  They work pretty well dontcha think? 

Just being prepared or overly cautious?

Trixie is a 2002 Honda Civic. I just got my car insurance and I've elected to maintain full coverage. What kind of crazy person has full coverage (with a $250 deductible) on a 10+ year old car? I could be saving at least $30 a month if I went with liability only (minimum requirement in GA), but I'm a bit paranoid. Trixie will be my only mode of transportation.If she's in an accident, I need her fixed and who knows if I'll have cash at hand to do it myself.

So there you are. Now you can rest assured that Trixie will be cared for if she's in an accident.

More cat pictures!

I downloaded a pdf of Trixie's Owner's Manual today. When I picked her up from the mechanic i discovered I can delete it & save the hard drive space for more pictures of cats.  That's what we all mostly download from the Internet,  right?

The original Owner's Manual was in the glove box:

Trixie's first check up.

I got the call yesterday afternoon from Garrett Automotive letting me know what needed to be done on Trixie. Apparently "Compliance Bushings" means "Lower Control Arms". Wait, her arms are broken? My poor Trixie has broken arms??? Well, of course that needs to be fixed right away.

This Y looking piece of metal is essential in keeping your wheels on your car. Who knew?

They also assessed her general overall condition and said she looks like a used car, but is mechanically in good shape. There was one more minor repair, the oil valve cover gasket needed to e replaced. Oh yes, that. My boyfriend told me that would need to be replaced, but see, he and his brother are planning on painting the valve covers on their cars and he will change the gasket then on mine too.  Henry is my boyfriend's 1990 Integra and his brother has a Honda Prelude (1999? and to my knowledge un-named, poor car) and they do things like that. I laughed when the mechanic laughed a little and said "Yep, sounds about right."  After all, they know Henry very well. I didn't inform him that my valve cover will be pink. I was afraid he'd laugh so hard that he'd accidentally hang up on me. 

Here's the running total on Trixie so far:

Purchase price: $2200

Lower Control Arms: $630

Next is wheels... we think she needs new actual wheels and we know she needs new tires. 

Should I get white wheels with a thin pink stripe painted on them, or just go with classic silver and add a thin pink stripe myself? Tell me what you think!

A diamond in the rough.

Driving around town looking at used cars isn't really my idea of a fun way to spend the day. Unfortunately it is how I spent April 1st 2013. I'd hunted online, my boyfriend helped me hunt online, and it was time to see if any of our leads where worthwhile. I wanted a Honda Civic Coupe, I was ok with an older model, as long as it had been well maintained and was in my price range. After the 4th or 5th unsuccessful stop, and one less than stellar test drive, I decided to hunt on Craigslist while he drove. There she was, a 2002 Honda Civic LX with 155K miles. Slightly beat up, but owned by one person for over 10 years. He had bought the car for his daughter. She learned to drive in the car, took it to college, learned not to txt and drive in it, and now as an adult with a career, she was moving onto a newer car. He was looking to sell because he didn't need it. He already had much "nicer" newer cars, and while this one ran well, it needed some TLC. I test drove her. Then my boyfriend test drove her. We felt her strong mechanics, and assessed her damages. We looked at each other and decided we were up for the challenge, if we could get her for the right price.

For just $2200, Trixie was mine.

We noticed when we drove her that something was wrong with her suspension, and the maintenance records we were provided said she needed new "Compliance Bushings". Unsure what that meant, we took her to our friendly neighborhood mechanic Garrett Automotive for a checkup.

We started browsing paint colors, wheels, tires, headlights, and of course accessories.
I hope you keep reading to hear more of Trixie's story.