Things you can do with a lemon.

What do you do with the sick feeling in the stomach,  the horrible sense that the ‘nice’ guy you had been talking to was dishonest, the realisation that your judgement was flawed, the angry thoughts towards another person and the dawning horror that your hard earned money has bought you a lemon? It happened to me a year ago when I bought a new (second hand) Toyota in a private sale.  I took it to my mechanic for a check over and he returned it to me with a list of 23 things, many of them major, that needed fixing!! Depression!!

Well, I had options as to what to do, all of which I considered.

1. Ring the guy up and give him a serve (what would he care?)
2. Dump the car on his doorstep to make a statement (cutting off my nose to spite my face)
3. Get really angry and torch the car (same as point 2)
4. Spend the next 6 weeks in bed feeling depressed (I have a wife and children to care for)
5. Sell the car on quickly to someone else (I couldn’t do that to someone else)
6. Take it to the mechanic and leave my credit card with him (serious damage to the hip pocket)
7. Summon up some gumption and try to turn the whole ‘disastrous’ event into a positive.

What did I do?

I chose number 7.

The vehicle only had 117,000 km on the clock, so I would have a really good car with a sound engine when I had fixed up the myriad other things that were wrong with it.  I also had the exact same model of vehicle parked under a tree at Wildflowers (the Toyota that had carried us on our trip up north to Cape York which I had ‘written off’ a couple of years before) for spare parts.

What ensued was a very steep learning curve in car mechanics! I proved that you are never too old to learn. A friend who used to be a mechanic offered me the use of his workshop, his tools and when needed, his advice.

So I launched off into the unknown, with the help of a manual, Google and my friend Derek, little knowing how serious the problems were.

Between April 1st 2015 (April fools day. That didn’t help!!! grrrr!) and 2nd August 2015 (when I was due to go on an overseas trip) I worked slowly and tirelessly, when I could, replacing the radiator and hoses, reconditioning the carburettor, replacing the air intake, leads and plugs, power steering pump, wheel bearings and seals, brake rotors and much more.

Covered in oil and grease, often working late into the evening, I navigated my way through the the inner working of engine bits and axles. My poor wife meanwhile laboured many a day with keeping the home and family on her own.

By August I had the major jobs done and the car running reasonably well.  I headed off overseas to visit my family, I was pretty pleased with how much I had learned about cars.

A week into my trip my wife contacted me to say that the engine had started making ‘clunking’ sounds.  She had driven it to the mechanics and he had said not to drive it any further.  Call the tow truck, said he!

I relapsed into depression and worry, only this time I was depressed and worried on the other side of the world. So what was I thinking when I got this news?

1. Ring the guy up and give him a serve (what would he care?),
2. Dump the car on his doorstep to make a statement (cutting off my nose to spite my face),
3. Get really angry and torch the car (same as point 2),
4. Spend the next 6 weeks in bed feeling depressed (I have a wife and children to care for),
5. Sell the car on quickly to someone else (Not possible anyway, the engine didn’t work)
6. Take it to the mechanic and leave my credit card with him (serious damage to the hip pocket)
7. Summon up some gumption and try to turn the whole ‘disastrous’ event into a positive.

What did I do?

I chose number 7.

When I got back from overseas I pulled the engine and gearbox out (thank goodness for friends like Derek!), then pulled the engine and gearbox out of the old Toyota (the write off involved body damage only) and put it into the ‘new’ Toyota replacing the clutch as I went.  No small undertaking in anybody’s language!  At the end of it all I felt like I had been through the wringer. But, when I fired the engine up for the first time I felt like a conquerer, that I’d reached the summit of Mount Everest, that I had proved to myself that nothing is too difficult and that what you don’t know you can always learn if you need to.

We have a car that runs pretty well now, and that, if and when the time comes, I can sell on with a clear conscience, though I will never make my money back

Despite having at hand many of the spares that I needed, it still cost me several thousand dollars to fix it.  It would have cost me much more had I got a mechanic to do the work.

I’ve settled in my mind that I succeeded in turning a negative into a positive:

1. I saved a lot of money,
2. I had lovely fellowship with my friend Derek,
3. I learned a lot, (about cars and myself),
4. I didn’t let the circumstances overwhelm me,
5. I know my vehicle intimately,
6. I accomplished things I never thought I could possibly do.

Many people that I have recounted this story to have been amazed that I changed the motor in a Toyota Landcruiser.  I’m amazed too! Have I become part of an elite group?

The highest accolade I had however was from a good friend (who is half my age) who said to me:

‘I would really like to do something like that before I get too old’.

The moral of this story? ………….You can do all sorts of things with a lemon!