A Car Named Christine

Posted by TheBisch
April 16, 2009

Some people name their cars. I know a car named “Old Red”, “Minnie”, “Daisy”, among others. I’ve never been one to name my car, but mine earned it a name this past weekend… meet Christine. Christine

If you’ve never watched the movie
or read the book, you should. It’s a great story by Stephen King. Christine is a car possessed by the devil and gets quite violent when she’s angry.

My car earned the name Christine based on her actions over her lifetime. Christine is a 2006 Chevy Impala SS. Since I got her, she’s been in the shop numerous times for warranty repairs. I’ve never gotten the Tire Pressure Monitor System (TPMS) to work properly. She’s had problems with the air conditioner, power steering, a few recalls, including one about the brake system. This weekend however really put her over the top. I was travelling on I-75 towards Atlanta when all of the sudden I hear a “vibration” type noise coming from the rear of the vehicle. I turned the radio down and instantly knew what it was… my rear tire. It had been losing pressure over the past few days and in fact, I had filled it up that morning. As I slowed down, Christine began to wobble and then I hear a pop and I lost my rear tire. I could feel it dragging along the Interstate as I pulled over to the side of the highway to stop. Of course, Christine couldn’t have picked a worse spot to have her blowout, so I had to cruise along the side of the Interstate for bit to get away from the dangerous curve and the bridge. By the time I pulled to a stop, I could smell the rubber burning.

Once I got my tire changed, I headed on down towards the tire shop I called in Atlanta. I pulled in to the parking lot and as they came out to help me, they asked me for the mileage on my car. I opened the door and was a little surprised at the odometer reading: 46,666.

Being that Christine is three years old and has over 46000 miles on her, the 50,000 mile tires didn’t have a whole lot of life left in them anyway. I got a quote for new tires that, after tax wiped out nearly all of my tax refund. So, I hope the economy feels stimulated.
Once they got Christine all fixed up with new tires (I went ahead and bought all four since the old tires didn’t have much life left).

As I was leaving, the tech told me that he thought that I had a bad bearing or maybe the steering component was broken on my front passenger wheel hub. There was a lot of movement in the hub… more than normal and he said I should have that checked (they don’t fix that at his shop). Great… my car is gonna wipe out my state tax rebate too.

So, you can see why my car has earned it’s nickname, Christine. She’s a mean little bitch, she breaks stuff on purpose, and likes to spend my money. :) At least she hasn’t tried to kill me… yet.

Current Events, Life's Little Stories, On the Road Again, , ,

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Comments
@Salena

I think you need to trade Christine in for a friendlier model… :)

Comment by Salena on Sunday, 4/26/2009 @ 1:50 pm

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