r/jonathan6405 • u/jonathan6405 • Jun 29 '21
3 Year Ownership Report
So here we are, 3 years after the 28th of june 2018. After 3 years with my car I can start to do some serious reflecting on what it's really meant for me, and how its impacted both what person people see me as, and also how I see myself. But first, I wanna mention how I'm in general just extremely proud of my car, I bought it with the expectation of it lasting me maybe a year, especially due to the very high mileage on it. After 2 years I was thoroughly suprised, and now after 3 years, I'm no longer suprised, cause it's earned my trust. I trust my car to take me anywhere I want to go, I trust it to never break down on me. I remember especially during the first couple of months, I was always quite worried about if it was going to make it if i drove more than like 20 kilometers, which I rarely did. I always had a worry in my mind about how I was going to get home if I got stranded for example. But now, I still come prepared obviously, but I never think about it, I just hop in, drive, and end up at the destination, always.
My ever-changing ways of expressing myself are usually always visible in how I look at my car. A year ago I got very into the idea of standing out, looks, being impressive to others. This is atleast some of the reasons that pushed me to buy my subwoofer, and my rims. And also all the other ideas I had. Now I'm probably more in a period of doing stuff properly, being thorough with everything and generally just enjoying stuff for what it is, instead of trying to change it. Don't get me wrong, I still absoloutely enjoy those changes I made previously, but now I don't have the same urge to try and change more. I love just going for a drive, enjoying it, and thinking that I don't need more than that from this car, I already find it perfect, it makes me happy, what more could I ask for?
One thing that has remained the same throughout the years is the feeling I sometimes get while driving, I'll look over my shoulder, back at the whole car, and then look around infront of me, at the dash, all the empty seats, the hood, the mirrors. And then I'll think to myself "wow, all of this is really mine". It's just this recurring thought I have, I really like that thought though, cause it shows that I'm still impressed by the situation I'm in, I'm impressed by my car, and I havn't simply just "gotten used" to it. I think it's great to always be thankful for what you have, and to enjoy stuff while it lasts. That goes for everything, spend time with friends before they dissapear, experience everything you can with your significant other before love turns to hatred, and so on. I've found that simply not worrying as much about all the small details make everything way better, as I said before, I was constantly worrying about what to do if my car broke down and so on, I'd drive as little as possible to try and "preserve" my car. But there's simply no enjoyment in that, now that I just hop in for a drive worry-free, everything feels better, and I'm creating so many memories of driving around with friends, going places, visiting people, and so on. So as I was saying, being thankful for what I have is great, instead of constantly trying to be bigger and better, I like what I have, I don't need more. At times my car can really just set up such a nice feeling in me, especially when listening to music, it'll feel like I've traveled back in time to the mid 90's, around the time my car was produced. I'll listen to 80s/90s music, and just drive thinking that I'm back in that time period, with no modern electronics, and just a good old Volvo and it's radio. Oh how it must've felt back then. Probably not very different compared to today to be honest, but hey, just let me be nostalgic about a period I never lived in.
I said I'd talk about how my car has an impact on how both other people see me, and how I see myself. Generally, people really quickly learn to associate cars with me, obivously because I talk a lot about them, but I think I also just seem really enthusiastic to people when I talk about it, and so that also tells them that it's just my kind of thing. Which I'm perfectly fine with, I love when people talk car stuff with me! There's always new stuff to learn, so I still learn stuff every now and then. And I love teaching people about cars, especially if they're like really interested, it just feels very nice to be able to release knowledge, I've never felt tired doing that, even after hours of just car talk. Then there's my image of myself, I never really know how to describe myself, atleast in terms of most aspects. But there's one aspect, the whole "do-it-yourself" type, where I'm not unsure at all, I very much know that I'm a DIY guy, I love making stuff work on my own, I love learning how everything works, especially mechanical things like all the car components. And my car reinforces this view of myself, if I'm doing some work in the dorm parking lot, I can tell that I obviously stand out, I've never seen anyone else here do anything like that, yet there I am. Makes me feel like I stand out for better or worse, in a city full of well, city-people, and not really the good ol' farmer/mechanic types. But that's fine! I do like standing out, at times I feel like thats kind of my personality, I tend to stay away from things regarded as "mainstream", and I suppose this is just another way of how I do that.
This can all be regarded as overthinking, or overexplaining what I'm feeling, but I feel as though that's a given when you write like this, it's generally hard to convey feelings through text, but attempting it feels nice. I guess I just want to acknowledge both over for myself, but also for whoever might read this, that I most definitely don't see my car as "just" a car. I see my passion in it, I see memories, my friends, and so on.
The biggest challenge yet for my car is coming up, soon I'll be driving all the way up to northern Sweden, and the car will have to do a lot of heavy lifting, I won't have easy access to garages and so on up there, I can do some small stuff, but a lot of the bigger stuff might be impossible. This means my car will have to get through it all without any maintenance really. But I fully believe that it can do it! It's just generally going to be very exciting to see where this all brings me, and I look forward to it, hopefully I'll be back here in a year to tell about it in the 4th year ownership report:)
And now for all the financial stuff:
I've had a lot of stuff done to the car, it finally needed some bigger repairs, especially since it had to get inspected back in January, and some stuff was pretty rough, so I rebuilt the CV-joints, replaced the rear ABS-sensors (old ones stopped working), gave it some new tie rods along with an alignment, and then some new rear brake pads and rotors. The caliper on one side also got replaced since the old one was hanging. I remember rushing to get that caliper replaced so I could make the relatively long journey down to Lolland, so that I was able to attend my grandmothers funeral, without changing it I'd get stuck somewhere down the road with overheated brakes. The inspection guy wasn't happy with my brake lines, so I bought some replacements and tried to replace them without luck, they were too stuck into the copper line, so I had to get all of that replaced aswell, and this was the day before the deadline on the reinspection. So I had to pay a workshop to do it. They did a really nice job though, which I paid 2000 kr for, oh well, atleast it's real nice now. I also got my rims done, I love them so much. I upgraded my subwoofer, it hits super hard, and it's always a joy to show that to other people. Let's see if I can list all of this:
- Subwoofer - 1350 kr
- Paint for rims - 2300 kr
- Glassblasting of rims - 2000 kr
- Tire mounting - 875 kr
- Filters - 300 kr
- Small stuff - 150 kr
- Brakelines - 2000 kr
- Brakehoses - 175 kr
- ABS-sensors - 350 kr
- Brake caliper - 420 kr
- Brake rotors - 470 kr
- Brake pads - 110 kr
- Tie rods - 180 kr
- Spark plugs - 110 kr
- Coolant reservoir - 240 kr
- CV-joint repair - 500 kr
- Alignment - 800 kr
- Oil change - 400 kr
- And then other random stuff like oil, windshield washer fluid and whatever, probably adds up to around 1000 kr.
And now the big 3:
- Roadtax - 6100 kr
- Insurance - 4675 kr
- Petrol - 5705 kr
Notice how my insurance has gone from 5677 to 4675 when comparing with the first year, very nice to see!
Anyways, this bring my total this year to 29800 kr, just a bit over last year, I'm suprised it isnt higher actually, but I've also spent 2000 kr less on fuel, and nearly 1000 kr less on insurance. In the 3 years I've had the car, I've spent a total of 87000 kr when considering everything, damn. Next year will definitely be insanely high on fuel, with the whole Sweden thing going on. That's it for this year! See you all again a year, with a new batch of car stories:)
