^fergie: glamorous, anyone?

well, the integra is finally gone. i had that car for 10 years. 10 years! i seriously grew up in it, and it was hard, but definitely time to let it go. i sold it to some kid who seemed a lot like me 10 years ago and i’m sure her ricer days are far from over.

i bought it right after i turned 18, so it was mah ride for all my adult life. i bought it with 30k miles, and sold it yesterday with 193k. i drove that car a distance equal to 6.5 times around the earth, or three-quarters of the way to the moon. in all that time, it only stopped running on my 3 times, once that i was able to fix on the spot, and twice on the 405 right next to eric’s place where i pulled in and spent a few hours fixing it.

i replaced the timing belt and water pump twice, the brake master cylinder once, the starter once, all the hoses twice, the distributor once, 5 axles (one of those was costin’s fault), 3 radiators, 2 motor mounts, a/c lines once, and of course regular maintenance like tires, oil, plugs, cap and rotor numerous times. while that may sound like a lot, it only adds up to a couple thousand dollars over almost 10 years.

i also spent a lot of money on ricer stuff. it had 3 different sets of rims, 2 different sets of seats, 4 different sets of sideskirts, 3 different front bumpers, 1 different rear bumper, and i had a carbon fiber hood on it when i sold it.

damn, and think about the gas. even at an efficient 30mpg, 160,000 miles / 30mpg =  5633 gallons of gas. at an average of what? $2 for regular over the last 10 years = $11,266! that’s only a few thousand less than i paid for the car itself.

and how about the pollution? this site says that a 1.6l (the integra was a 1.8l) car produces 200grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer. so for my 163k miles (or 262k km) that’s over 115,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, yikes!

well, what’s done is done, and i’ll definitely miss that car.

them were the days: