--- 
canonical: 'https://mwop.net/blog/59-Enter-the-Matrix.html'
title: 'Enter the Matrix'
author: "[Matthew Weier O'Phinney](https://mwop.net)"
created: '2005-03-20T23:33:41-06:00'
updated: '2005-03-20T23:36:19-06:00'
tags:
  - personal

---
I couldn't resist… the car model demands it…

For those not familiar with where I live, my family and I live in West Bolton,
VT — about 20 miles from Burlington, and at the base of Bolton Mountain. Our
daily commute is 4 miles on a dirt road, another 3 to 4 miles on some twisty
two-laners at 35mph to the interstate, and around 10 miles on the interstate
into Burlington. Then there's all the miles in town getting Maeve to day-care,
Jen or myself dropped off, and whomever has the car to work. And we only have
one car.

So, you can imagine the crisis when, almost a month ago, our Toyota RAV4 died on
the way in to work.

We started it up that day, and it had this funny knocking sound. I remembered a
similar sound in my old pickup back in Montana… the one that died. I determined
to get it into a shop that day to get it diagnosed. The noise came and went
while we were on the backroads, and because it wasn't constant, I figured it
couldn't be too serious.

And then we tried to get to highway speeds…. a few miles on the interstate, and
it was evident we were in trouble. The Rav was having trouble maintaining 60mph
on the way up French Hill — when it normally was able to accelerate past 70mph.
And the knocking sound was getting worse and louder.

We resolved to pull off at the first exit, at Tafts Corners in Williston. I
pulled into the first gas station there, and as we tried to find a place to park
the vehicle, a mechanic was flagging at us to stop the car. He came over to
where we parked and said, "Sounds like you've blown your engine."

These, of course, were the absolute last words I wanted to hear.

To make a long story short, apparently a bearing was thrown when we started the
engine that day, and because we decided to drive it, we basically destroyed the
engine. The cost to replace it: around $6,000.

Now, we're not exactly what you'd call "financially secure". We've had a lot of
transitions in the past five years, and except for the past year and a few
months, haven't typically both been working at the same time. We've been in a
perpetual cycle of having enough to pay the bills… but having to pay
consistently late. And we haven't been able to do much, if anything, about our
educational debt. In short, our credit sucks. Which means that $6,000 is a big
deal.

Did I mention that, at the time of the incident, we still had 17 months left on
our car payments?

And, on top of it, I've been in the middle of a *huge* project for work that's
required a fair bit of overtime — and very little wiggle room for personal time?

The timing could not have been worse, either professionally or financially.

We've been very fortunate, however. Jen's parents very graciously offerred to
pay off our existing car loan — which helped tremendously. It bought us both the
time to figure things out, as well as eliminated one factor that may have barred
our ability to borrow towards repairs or a new car. Additionally, a friend of
Jen's turns out to be absolutely ruthless when it comes to dealing with car
salespeople, and went to bat for us in working out a deal. If it hadn't been for
her efforts — and those of the salesperson, who also went to bat for us — we
would not have gotten more than a thousand or so for the vehicle; we ended up
getting over $3,000 for it, as is. Finally, the finance guy at the dealership
advocated for us tremendously so we could get a loan on a new vehicle, with the
Rav as our trade in.

So, to conclude: We're now proud owners of a 2005 Toyota Matrix! (And now the
mystery of the title is revealed… to all you Matrix fans out there…)

I'll try to get a photo of the car up soon… about the time we update the
year-old photos on our site… :-)