365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 85 : Like a Blood Sucking Metallic Leach

No this is the title of the new Slayer album.....

It is rather my less than flattering description of once again going through the whole renewing the registration of my car process. It is never usually a pleasant process for anyone, especially a non-car lover like myself (I do care about my car but purely as a beast of burden to get me from A to Z.... yes my car, Fido, no doubt has self-esteem issues..hmm odd that I am anthropomorphising my car when I treat it so glibly) but today has been an abolsute automotive horror story even though everyone has been lovely, and at the last minute managed to staunch the financial bleeding somewhat.

First up, my car went in for its Pink Slip check today. While the Pink Slip is now virtual, the act of dropping off the car and having it checked by a mechanic is very real, and welded to, in this case, a very early stone cold reality. I had the car at the mechanics by 6.50 a.m. - not so bad when I am up at 4.45 for my exercise regime - and I was on a train to work by 7.10. The mechanics have since called me twice today and they have been thoroughly professional and articulate; alas their articulateness centred around the high amounts of money needed to fix bare oil-soaked rear brake pads, something called a 'bush' on the suspension and a few other sundry thingies (note my indepth grasp of automtoive lingo, forged through years of not giving a f**k about the ins and outs of car maintenance). Still, poor though I will be, at least I understand (I think) what they've done and the mechanics have been polite and great to deal with from the word go.

My Green Slip (third party insurance) was the corker of the day. My incumbent insurer decided to jack up my rates by about $300 year on year and alternately laughing at, or furious about it, I decided to get quotes from the official government site, and other insurers. After checking the government webt site, which draws off the quote systems of the insurers themselves, I called my existing insurer to see if they could lower my rate to what the government site said it should be. Unfortunately for me, and ultimately my existing insurer, the customer service agent I got was belittling, rude and spent his time brusquely ridiculing every suggestion I made to the point where I hung up in fury and called one of their competitors, who in contrast were friendly, courteous and knowledgable and who managed to save me $230 on my Green Slip premium! It's likely they'll also get my Comprehensive insurance too so impressed was I with the service agent.

Still, all this talk of saving money does ignore the fact that I will have handed over close to $2000 by the time I am done to insure a car that leaves the garage about once a week for a few hours at a time, and so while I value the freedom a car on tap gives me, I am seriously considering selling it, pocketing whatever I earn from it, and signing up to a car collective like Go Get. Yes I will have to plan ahead a lot more but I will save heaps of money, and not have this insane drain on my finances.

Not sure how I will break to Fido though.....