After more than 4 months (its a long story), my car finally got some license plates! Now I feel like a Californian for real. Don’t have to feel like the “new guy” on the streets anymore I guess 
I also bought an University of Illinois frame for the back plate. One shouldn’t forget where he comes from Go Illini!
Front Plate:
Back Plate:
And so the most faithful lady in my life has left me! My beautiful Jetta…she put me through rough and tough and made me a stronger man. I have found a great new home for her, Indianapolis! I wish her luck and the new owner the same good fortune I’ve had with this car. Thank you for the times
So the time has come to sell my Jetta! I’ve had this car throughout college, and now since I am moving to California, it is time for me to sell it. It is kind of sad, as I’ve had so many good memories in this car and it has served me well…but like George Harrison said, all things must pass, and so must this car. I am looking for a good home for this car. I’ve priced it to sell ($2990) well below the blue book value. I’ve had some good response after putting it up on my company’s classifieds for a day, hopefully I’ll be able to sell it by the end of this week!
I actually also “ordered” an ad in the news paper classifieds, but after getting so much response just on my company classifieds, I called and had them cancel and refund my order for the ad (they hadn’t even printed it yet). Hopefully I won’t need it!
Also, I know I still haven’t posted about my future plans yet, I will soon to make it official to the world
FINALLY, I just got back from my car, where my stereo is installed! Here is the story:
To update you from the last post, I finally got my old stereo out this morning (I bought the actual DIN tool from walmart, and then wiggled the hell out of the stereo). Then, I ran around all day trying to figure out how to hook the new one in. I had gotten the right wire harness from BestBuy earlier, but that one had only wires on one end (which would require me to solder the wires from the stereo and the wires from the car together…or crimp them together). So not wanting to do that (for some reason I didn’t realize then that crimping wires together is pretty easy), I tried to find a wire harness that had adapters on both ends, so one would go in my car and the other in my new stereo. I drove all the way to Circuit City on Barry Rd to find that (20 miles driving at least), only to find that one like that doesn’t exist unless you special order it.
I came back home disappointed and decided to call the (friendly) guys at Crutchfield.com. The lady I talked to there told me I should just use a crimper to put the wires together…so then, I drove again to Walmart for the 2nd time today (20 more miles) and got the wire crimper. Then I came home and assembled it, and then went to my car at 12:30AM to put in the stereo.
I connected it and it worked, so that was good, but then of course more problems. I had the hardest time fitting all those wires in the slot. I had to rip some padding out of the inside, and what not to fit it all in there. But now it’s in, it works, and looks professionally installed (from the outside at least 
). Yaaah for me!! No more cassette connections and dangerous driving while changing cds
I bought a new stereo for my car recently. I was quite excited about picking it up today, and installing it. It plays MP3s and has a remote control too! Amit was supposed to help me install it today…and we sure did try to do exactly that.
There was just a tiny problem though, we couldn’t get my old stereo out! We tried so hard. VW’s have this special that you have to insert on both sides of the stereo to free the latch. We didn’t have this tool, so instead we made it from a wire hanger! Then for a few hours we struggled with the stereo, to no avail. My fingers are really paining from using the wire cutter to cut the thick wire hanger. I even ended up breaking part of the front plate…good thing this was on my OLD stereo…heh.
I think I’m just going to order the real tool from Crutchfield. I hope the real thing will help :\
Grr. I really hate winter. This morning was like hell, all the streets have an inch of ice, and while I was going to work (I HAD to go because of all the days, my dentist appointment HAD to be scheduled today!), guess what? My car skidded and hit a yeild sign! So now the left part of my bumper is cracked. I was going pretty slow so there was no major damage, the headlight wasn’t injured, just the lower bumper. But still!!!
DAMN! CRAP! GRRRRR! I hate winter. I hate winter. I hate winter. I hate winter. I hate winter. I hate winter. I hate winter. I hate winter. I hate winter. I hate winter.
Okay that is enough for anger. I’m gonna go meditate in the bathroom for 5 minutes and get back to work. Hope everyone else is having a great day
To those of you who have heard me bitch about my car problems, you are aware that the engine light on my car has been on for almost 1 1/2 years now! Yes, I’ve gotten it checked out, and they found nothing. The mechanic said that there is nothing wrong that he can find, that maybe it’s just something really small that’s ticking off the light.
In anycase, today, as I was pulling away from Taco Bell, I realized that after almost 7 thousand miles of driving with this light on, IT WAS GONE! It really feels like a dream right now, so I guess I’ll have to make sure tomorrow morning when I start my car. I’ve heard from other Jetta owners with a similar problem that many times it comes back on. But I was just glad to see it off for once!
I just figured out how to fix the car stereo…turns out the code of my stereo was in some manual deep inside my stack of car manuals. So my stereo works now =)
I also added some coolant to my car…even though coolant is not a “usable” substance…meaning…it should never get low. I don’t know why mine was low, but it’s filled now. It could be a leak, so I’ll see if the level changes now that I know it’s full. The thing that’s worrying me is that I read on the internet that it’s supposed to be pink coolant (and the coolant I put in was the pink stuff), but the coolant already in the car was not… I guess I’ll know something was wrong if the engine explodes or something…heh. So that’s the update. Now to get dressed for Navratri in KC!!
When I was out getting my starter installed yesterday, I think the mechanic unhooked the battery for some reason, and now my car’s stereo went into the “SAFE” mode–which basically means that the stereo locks up (It’s an anti-theft feature). I looked around on the net to see what was going on, and I figured out that I need to call the dealer with my VIN and my radio’s serial number. To get the serial number, I’m gonna have to take the radio out of the dash–something that I don’t really know how to do, but I’ll have to figure it out, guess that’s what learning is all about!
What a sweet sound…the sound of a new starter. So anyway, I just paid 80 bucks to get the starter on my Jetta replaced. I may even get a 6% discount if my credit card company counts this as a “Auto/Gas” cost. So then the total cost of this operation would be:
$124.83 Starter
$81.24 Installation
-6%
Equals: $193.64.
Estimate given to me by my usual mechanic: $360. Thats right So I guess it was worth the 3 days wait and getting rides from every which person.
Anyway, back to the sweet sound of the starter…vrrrroooom.