The Car “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” or “don’t be ungrateful when given something,” comes from estimating a horse’s age by how worn its teeth are. And now we know that we should have at least peeked under the “horse’s” hood. For only $1,000, my parents sold us The Car, which had run 100,000 miles flawlessly. It was a loss to them and a favor to our young family. When the engine went, we were sick, but we decided that putting in a rebuilt engine would make The Car like new. Not long after, the transmission went. We had invested so much money in The Car, we couldn’t afford to get rid of it then, could we? The AC followed suit, an eight-week repair mess. We have lost track of miscellaneous other repairs, but after sinking $7,000 into The Car, the heater core went out, we admitted defeat. The heater core would have been $700 because it was buried in the dash. We sold The Car for $500. Lesson learned: ALWAYS look a gift horse in the mouth, or at least check its track record in Consumer Reports. (And if this story is published, at least some profit will have come from The Car.) Debbie Ingalls |
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