My Red Pontiac Firebird – Magnetic Babe With An Attitude Problem

Before I talk about my Firebird, let me mention that I once owned a brand new Pontiac Fiero. It was black and bold and sexy and cool. I felt like a superhero in it as I ran down the street and flew around the corners. But I had problems with that car; In short, you couldn’t drive, eat a donut, and shift gears all at the same time. That irritated me a lot. But the car never broke down. Of course, it only had 30,000 miles on it before someone used it as target practice for terrorist training by ramming their car into it and totaling it. He knew a terrorist did it because no one else would accidentally rear-end a parked car. So, at 22 years old, I ran to my Pontiac dealer and bought what I really wanted in the first place: A red Pontiac Formula Firebird! Imagine my grin from ear to ear as I pulled out of the parking lot with the 8 cylinders whirring, a box of donuts at the ready, and my automatic transmission shifting for me.

It was a very fast, bright red car that could be seen coming for at least 135 miles. He knew it would attract girls. As I was driving home, I thought I might finally get a girl to talk to me now that she had this fantastic car. I remember the excitement when I ran out of gas after that first tank. He had been waiting for this day. I would have to stop at the gas station where I would calmly and sexyly strip off my man-or-musk metal outerwear so that all the ladies could wistfully admire me, the owner of this fabulously sexy magnetizing machine.

The first ten times I got out of the car, the girls didn’t look at me much. I didn’t think anything of it. He was distant and on top of the world. I figured they were just being coy like me. I lived out my fantasy for many seasons afterward. I even stopped to fill every 5 gallons to improve my odds of admiration. More than 100 stops later the results came in; no ladies watching. To add insult to injury, 15 of your folks would always come up to me and say something like, “dude, how many horsepower does that baby have under the hood?” Ok, it took me another ten years to realize that it would take something like a BMW, Mercedes or other expensive car to get the attention of the ladies. I learn life’s lessons very slowly.

Anyway, the reason for this story really has nothing to do with how sexy I am, but with the mechanical problems on my Firebird. Sorry it took me so long to get to him. I tend to ramble. Long story short, one morning my Firebird had developed an attitude problem that revolved around a sleep disorder. I mean, I wouldn’t wake up. The starter was pronounced clinically dead at the scene.

So I towed my old 60,000 mile Babe Mobile to my local neighborhood franchise garage and they had a deal for me. They could replace my starter with a rebuilt part and save me some money on the repair (instead of using new parts like the dealer wanted to do). It came with a brilliant 90-day guarantee. I figured the original part lasted 60,000 miles and 4 years, the rebuilt would surely last at least half that time.

So about 91 days later I was towed back to the shop with the same attitude problem with my car. The shop manager thought that we had correctly adjusted the position of the car from the first time, and that the failed starter was surely just a fluke. So we agreed to put another rebuilt starter in there. Yes, I went back to hide in the same store about 92 days later. I think we put a new one on it that time, but I don’t really remember (bad memories are blocked by the brain after the trauma gets bad enough).

So now a little technical talk about why this might have been happening. Rebuilt parts typically come with a 90-day warranty and fail much more often than remanufactured or new parts. In the process of a remanufactured part, they usually clean, test, and replace what needs to be replaced, but nothing else. Think about that for a minute. You’re only fixing what actually broke, not necessarily the design or assembly flaws that may have caused the failure in the first place.

You can also go for a reman part where you scrap all wear items, test the rest, resurface all relevant surfaces, replace all scrap wear items, and test the final assembly. In this case, you’re definitely improving your odds of staying on the road longer. These parts will fail much less frequently than rebuilt parts and usually come with a 12-month, 12,000-mile warranty. Of course, you can go for the full Monty and buy a new part and also get a 12-month, 12,000-mile warranty and (arguably) get the best results.

Now that I’ve helped you understand the technical talk the guys at the store give you when they list your options, keep in mind that I have little to no good advice regarding women in general. But this story should help you with that little problem I had driving a Pontiac Firebird. You see, today my wife is smarter than me, and she is also much more beautiful than me. And you guessed it. I put it up long after the firebird was buried.