Ever Get That Feel?

"Junkrat aka Rick Sanchez: Fury Road Edition" (realasabass) 07/08/2017 at 03:52 • Filed to: None

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1. Searching used car parts on ebay.

2. Finding some really great examples of said part.

3. Realizing that many of your favorite kind of cars ended up in the junkyard for whatever reason to give us these great used parts.

4. Seeing stuff like climate controls, you know stuff that doesn’t get replaced too often, and realizing each one is a tombstone.

5. Gettin that feel.

I am only half joking.

19JRC99 > Junkrat aka Rick Sanchez: Fury Road Edition 07/08/2017 at 05:33

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Well thanks for depressing me.

SVTyler > Junkrat aka Rick Sanchez: Fury Road Edition 07/08/2017 at 07:17

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I get the same feeling looking at part-out threads on forums. Like no one just randomly decides to start parting out their cars, you know that was the absolute last option the owners had after years and years of loving care and faithful maintenance, of doing everything the owner can to nurse their old friend back to health, to make it another thousand miles, another few weeks. While nothing ever went wrong all at once, there were plenty of little things here and there, another oil leak, some wiring to troubleshoot, some more rust to remove, that kept the owner busy on the weekends. All the while they were working in the hot, stale air of their garage they told themselves that was the price to pay for an old car, and that they were happy to do it for their tired old ride they had spent so many joyful years with.

That time and effort starts to take a toll though; after each repair the cloud of doubt in the back of their head gets a little bit darker, and the heartache of knowing their old friend is sick replaced by ever-growing frustration that it will take even more time and money to fix. The repairs come more frequently; what seemed like once every couple months had morphed into every other week, always a new noise to chase, another check engine light to diagnose.

Eventually, months and years later, the owner hit a breaking point. Maybe it was after the car threw a rod or ate a synchro, something major they could finally throw their hands up at and point to as the final straw. Maybe it was after something simple, but in the big picture was one of countless little repairs made to the car that underscored the amount of work the car had needed over the last few years. Either way, the owner realized that all the effort they’re putting in, all the money, all the time, just isn’t worth it anymore. They realized it was time to move on.

So the owner listed their car on the classifieds, hoping to recoup some of his losses. He told himself it was a purely financial decision, that getting a few grand for all that work was better than nothing and it didn’t matter who bought it as long as their money was good. But still, he had hopes for the kind of person who would buy the car. Maybe it would be some bright-eyed kid just getting into cars, and their old friend could serve as a guide for their journey into the enthusiast world. Maybe it would be who had spent years pining after such a car, who had spent months searching for the exact make and model, and now had the means to fulfill a lifelong dream. Maybe it would even be someone who would take just as good of care of the car as the owner himself did.

But as the weeks and months passed, it became clear that there was not a new home for the car. Some tire-kickers came by as they always do, but left without making any serious inquiries. The offers that did come in through email and text were insulting. That little for their pride and joy?

So, with a heavy heart and guilty conscience (after all, maybe there was something more they could’ve done), the owner listed their car on the forums, offering the corpse of their once beloved car to the masses. Come the next day when they check their inbox, they found a surprising amount of members circling the listing like vultures, eager to pick away at the bones of what had once been their most cherished possession. No one responding to the ad cares that was the owner’s first car or the one that drove them to college or their first job or first date, or their dream car that had saved years for or spent countless hours hunting through classifieds to find. None of them care that the car was the one constant in the owner’s life, the single thing he could always rely on to bring him comfort and happiness when everything else seemed so precariously unstable; all they want to know is how low the seller is willing to go on the part they want.

Urambo Tauro > Junkrat aka Rick Sanchez: Fury Road Edition 07/08/2017 at 09:27

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Yup. Each time I visit a salvage yard, I think about how every single one of these cars was once brand new, and how excited the original owners must have been. Each one of these cars was once spotless, and everything worked. Then somewhere along the line, the owner got lazy about maintenance, or couldn’t afford a repair... but for most of these cars, the story ends with a crash, because somebody liked their phone too much, or somebody didn’t yield the right-of-way, or somebody let themselves think that maybe they’re not that drunk...