The One Where Benjamin Leaves Us

It became apparent this summer that Rachel's darling beetle was a problem child.  The air conditioning refused to work, so as temperatures climbed into the 140s (ok, 110s) she began driving my van to work.

Benjamin the Bug was sitting in our driveway.  Growing more decrepit each day.  Finally, I took him into the dealership service department to see how much it would cost to get him running and running well.  

See, we got Benjamin to be a Yukon car and really, that was its purpose.  So while it was a bit disappointing when the service department listed off the multitude of things that needed fixing, we groaned and went "thanks but no thanks."  It wasn't that we needed Benny to run, but he needed to be reliable enough to go from Yukon to Moore 5 days a week for 11 months, as Rachel attended culinary school.  It also would have been a whole other ballgame if there were lots of mechanics who worked on Volkswagons, where we could go with the lowest bidder.

The decision was made to sell the bug.  But how much?  Would anyone buy it?  Should we just give it to salvage?  Donate it to a tech school?  After 2 weeks of listening to a couple people (ahem, Kevin) say that they would make phone calls, I finally decided to put an ad on Craigslist.  

Read below.  

I have a 2001 VW Beetle in my driveway that needs to get gone. We bought the car 2+ years ago so that my daughter could run my errands for me, including hauling her brothers around, thus leaving me time to watch more reality tv and eat chocolate covered cream puffs. Unfortunately now, she needs a real car that can drive distances, like to college and stuff wherein the goal is to improve her future immensely. And this VW does not share her future plans. By the way, it's name is Benjamin and he is a boy beetle. At one time though, he had pastel polka dot vinyls all over him so Benjamin can pass as a Bernadette if you feel so inclined.

It was cyber green, but 11+ years on this planet have faded it to, well, a faded green. Not to mention the built up grime that probably a good scrubbing could eliminate, but since I'm not driving the car, I'm not scrubbing it.

It has over 120K miles on it, and I would tell you the exact number but the engine has to at least pretend to start so the dashboard will tell me the mileage. And apparently that's not happening.

Benjamin's medical records are at Cable Volkswagon, a place filled with very nice people but very expensive labor and parts. Thus, the reason for selling the car - I took it in to see what it would cost to make Benjamin run long college distances. I think it was something around $1500 or so (dealership prices) and I politely said no. I left Cable in the beetle and it promptly died a block away from the dealership service department.

I'm sure Benjamin's not DEAD dead. Just in a coma.

Things I Am Disclosing About The Beetle:
* front fender is off, due to an unfortunate roll into a ditch. But the fender is in my garage!
* Driver's light lens is off
* O2 sensor "needs to be replaced" (so says Cable, but everyone else says no)
* a hole in the AC compressor
* the bar that holds up the radiator is bent and should probably be replaced
* it burns oil up, not leaks it, but we pour oil into it on a regular basis
* Tires are bald and no spare anymore (because the spare is on the driver's rear....it was a full size spare!)
* Hubcap missing, but may be in my garage
* Rotors and brake pads need replacing
* Passenger handle on inside is ripped off (apparently a fairly common thing for new beetles)
* various interior fabric stains and tears
* Driver's seat cannot be adjusted (well it can, but you have to wedge the stick in so it won't move)
* Sunroof works (yay!)
* doesn't like to go over 45mph (perhaps another sensor thing Cable told me was wrong with it)
* Doesn't run (remember the coma)

I don't want to give the thing away for free but perhaps there's a dashing young man would would like to practice his skills of New Beetle Mechanics. Or a woman. I'm all over equal opportunity here for selling this darling piece of steel. So take 5 minutes to mull this over and then shoot me an email saying that yes, you'd be delighted to pay me to take this darling piece of steel from my driveway.

Thanks for reading my ad here.

Just for the record, there may or may not have been a glass or three of wine involved when I wrote the ad.  Nice, huh?

Within 2 hours, I had 4 emails requesting to know more about Benjamin.  One response was "Great ad.  If I give you $700 in cash today and haul it off tomorrow, would you take it?"  

I agreed.  I mean, come on.  I had written a pretty darn good ad and it was nice that he recognized that.

Turns out they are just a couple of guys who like to tinker with European cars and get them back to running.  They are car flippers, if you will.  

And now Rachel's bawling her eyes out because her presshhuss Benjamin is moving on without her tomorrow.  I thought she'd be happy that Benjamin's not going to the salvage yard (Toy Story 3, anyone?).  I think she is but she's in mourning right now.

I tried to cheer her up by saying "You know, I was so sad when I had to get rid of my little blue Nissan Pulsar NX.  I loved that car.  Would have kept it forever except your darn carseat wouldn't fit in the back of it.  So really, your situation is much better than mine was."

I am not only a literary genius in car salesmanship, I am also the pinnacle of comfort and understanding.