My non-bloggie friends’ most frequent complaint to me about the blog: I’d comment, but dude, all the fair trade stuff’s way over my head.
This one’s for you: another car post. Cuz Mut got broken into.
That’s right. Since, I’ve realized that it’s kinda tough to get any sympathy about car theft in Los Angeles if you drive a 95 Honda Civic, the #1 choice for car theft.
What got taken: My engine computer. Until a few days ago, I didn’t even know that my engine HAD a computer.
Nor did I know that I had some super vigilant neighbors. Cuz when Mut wouldn’t start, I called Better World, and when my neighbors saw the tow truck pull up, they came running out, and asked, “Is this your car?”
Apparently, Jayonn, one of my neighbors, saw some suspicious people hanging around my car last Thursday night around 2 am, when Jayonn and his girlfriend got back from a party at a friend’s place. The two of them watched a guy come out of the van parked behind Mut. And each time another car came by, the guy’d try to hide.
After a few tries, this guy got into my car and popped the trunk and the hood — at which point my neighbors called the cops. Unfortunately, the suspicious people were gone by the time the cops got there. And because there was nothing visibly missing or wrong with Mut, the cops came and left.
Which is why the theft wasn’t discovered until Tuesday morning, after I got home from Denver, when I tried to start the car to get to class.
In a way, I’m really lucky that my window got broken before — otherwise, I wouldn’t've known where to go with my engine probs. Fortunately, I had Thom of Monkey & Son’s recommendation for Jim Matson Automotive (website under construction).
When I got there, I talked to Jae, a nice Korean man who first thought there was something wrong with the distributor and told me it would be arond $500 including labor. Later, he found out that the real prob was the missing engine computer, at which point he called around for a used one.
Total cost to replace the missing computer, including labor: $468.87. According to Jae, getting the part new would’ve cost over $1000.
Now Mut’s back and running, but I’m now more eager than ever to move to Santa Monica and get rid of car-ownership responsibilities altogether…
Update, 7/23/06: Mut gets de-lighted –
Update, 1/12/07: Some people suck. Mut’s engine computer got stolen, encore.
ARRGH. Man, dude :(
Comment by Jasmin — February 25, 2006 @ 8:12 am
When I was in San Francisco a few years ago, my car was stolen for a couple of months before it was found parked somewhere with a missing computer. Within a week after it was all fixed, computer was stolen again. Each time I took the car in, it took a couple of weeks just to find a replacement computer because they were in high demand. The used ones we get probably got ripped off someone else’s car.
Comment by Jason — March 1, 2006 @ 10:44 pm