The other day I screwed up, and the aftermath made me think…would cars be safer without horns?

I took my three year old to Target today to get some diapers and other stuff. We went to ‘look at cars’, which is Sebastian for ‘buy Hot Wheels’, and he immediately spotted this.

I was attempting to get the Jetta inspected today, so naturally this happened.

For my first ever use of the Jetta as a pickup truck, I drove out to CT after work yesterday and picked up this air compressor.

I managed to get my new wheels and winter tires swapped onto the Jetta last night before the snow came, and man what a difference:

One of the little things I want for my Jetta is a set of OEM all season ‘Monster Mats’. I don’t, however, want to buy a new set because a) they cost $100 and b) they don’t sell them with the model name on them anymore, just blank. I had a set in my allroad, and the Jetta is really playing on my nostalgia.

...bed. See, a major flaw in the Step2 C7 Z06 bed is it’s 200lb weight capacity. How is a grown 300lb man supposed to sleep in a racecar bed with a 200lb weight limit?!

The last few days I sold a few things on eBay, and also locally on Facebook Marketplace, so I was able to go ahead and pull the trigger on the spacers I need to make my new wheels fit the Jetta.

Just for kicks, I stood two of my new wheels/tires in front of the Jetta. Turns out it’s going to look pretty good!

For the last few days, I’ve been chasing this set of Sparco wheels and tires on Facebook Marketplace. I’ve actually grown to prefer Facebook Marketplace over Craigslist, mainly because you’re contacting people through instant messaging rather than an email exchange. That has not, however, made the overall experience…

I finally got the Jetta back from my mechanic today. After Monro quoted me $1800 to replace the entire exhaust on the car (and thats the price with them trying to save the O2 sensors, which they wouldn’t have been able to do), I bought a downpipe/cat off RockAuto and brought it to a guy I like who I know does good…

He’s about two weeks early, but healthy as a horse.

I finally got the Jetta registered on Monday, so I decided to bring it to somebody to try and get the flex pipe replaced. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened yet because I brought it to these guys.

Or a dead shift knob anyway. This bastard put up a valiant fight, I’ll give it that, but ultimately I’m afraid the strain was more than it could bear.

I finally got the Jetta buttoned up this morning, just in time to take it to the Warwick Police Department for a VIN inspection before I register it on Monday. And you know, it just might be a good car.

This is the awful shift knob on my Jetta, and let me tell you: it is ON THERE.

This is the aftermath of a half hour battle between me and a wheel speed sensor that didn’t want to come out of my Jetta’s hub. I removed the brake rotor shield by hand because it was so rotted, and rust/dirt/garbage was just caked in around the sensor.

My Jetta has been apart for about a week as I’ve waited for time to button up the back brakes. Before putting them back together though, I wanted to replace both of the inoperative rear wheel speed sensors...and that’s been trickier than anticipated.

Looks like today I’m finally going to have some time to work on the Jetta a little bit...my father in law is in town and he’s taking my wife and our son out to do a little shopping, so I’m going to stay in and do some stuff. I’ve been hoarding parts and sleeping on a pile of them like a German dragon, so it’ll be good…

Occasionally for my job, I get to hop on the Prudence Island ferry and go deliver lumber over there. My truck is big and the boat is tiny.