ARGH.... SWHMBO and cars

Love her forever, but man is she tough on cars.....

Daughter of a cop.... learned how to drive like a cop..... I replace brakes a minimum of every 25,000 miles (somehow - I manage to get well north of 50k on mine).

She's got a 2 year old car - every panel is either dented or scratched.

She comes home from the store a few weeks ago - "I went too close to a parking barrier and the bumper is now warped out by the fender." What's a good husband to do except get on his back and replace a whole series of clips.

Now, I'm 1,500 miles away from home on a 3 week work trip. Get a call today and she's using her "I'm going to play cute to try and not make him mad" tone of voice..... she was trying to go around a garbage truck, and clipped a garbage can with her mirror - smashed, dealer wants $300 to replace it.

At this point - I've been asking her (nicely!) to slow down, think about the geometry of the car and take her time! So, I get mad..... not yelling mad, just mad..... Remind her that I've been telling her -for years- to take .... her.... time..... She gets mad back - claims it wasn't her fault. I'm sorry, but who was moving in this situation? You, or the garbage can?

I then tell her to take a look at her car (scratched, dented, looking older than a 2 year old car should look) and look at my car (4 years old, 2 scratches and a dent, all of which she is responsible for). She responds with claiming that her car gets driven more - except, as I point out - my car has 10k more miles on it..... I get hung up on.

Sigh.... I'm going to just pour a beer - let her steam, and thank a higher power that she and my daughters are healthy and safe. It's the little things to complain about in life - right?

 

Hey better to rant a little here than a full out argument with the wife. I'm sure it is pretty frustrating, I''d be frustrated in that situation.

Your last paragraph says it all.

 

I've been married for 7 years now. Dated my wife for 10 before we got married. It wasn't until recently that I could finally get in a car and let her drive without going nuts. You have to pick your battles. Some will never be won.

 

Buy her cars that are 15 years old and let her beat the hell out of them. Problem solved.

 

Ahhhhh.... she just called back - put the 1 and 3 year olds on the phone to try and soften me up. Had a nice conversation with my three year old. Told the wife to call me back once they are in bed.

 

At least you're still 1,500 miles away from her!

 

SWHMBO?

She Who Has My Balls Often?

 

"She Who Has My Bloodpressure On-the-rise"

 

That isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

There goes the resale value.

 

Swmbo has a resale value?

 

That would have been a reason not to marry a person right there. If they can't respect their own property the won't respect anything else..

My wife's a decent driver, just likes to run the gas tank as empty as possible.

 

I can see your frustration. My m-i-l is an accident waiting to happen, and my f-i-l somehow manages to stay calm. Its a lot easier to stomach something like that when your sig other just says "yeah, wish I hadn't done that" rather than "its not my fault."

 

"Women Drivers? No Survivors"

 

My wife is rough on her car. She drives a civic, which is a fine car for her except it is too low to the ground and the wheels are small. She has a habit of driving over curbs/into curbs and parking over the parking space barrier so when she reverses she pulls part of the fender off. She also seems to aim for pot holes. I have never met somebody who blows out tires, burns the tread off tires and has terrible alignment like her. Since we can't afford to buy her a new car at the moment, I have pleaded with her to let me put her civic on a lift and put larger tires on her car. So far this year we have had to buy a new set of tires to replace the set we bought last year, had the bumper repaired twice and the alignment fixed at least twice.

 

Remember the 'Curb feeler' wires you see on some hot rods? It would be pretty simple to wire up something on a spring-loaded trip arm so as the front of the car reached the curb stop, a light came on inside the car saying STOOOOOOP!!!

Pretty simple DC circuit, really....

 

Luckily tires of that size are relatively cheap and the Civic is a relatively durable vehicle, as far as I can tell by the number of beat-up civics I see driving around on the roads around here.

Replacing tires and getting alignments is probably cheaper than car payments.

 

I try to abide by the "happy wife, happy life" mantra. At times it is difficult to do, especially when you ask her a thousand times to do something and her answer is "I forgot"...and she wonders why I homebrew. God, I love that woman.

 

Not so much if she's all scratched and dented.

 

That's a bit of a stretch right there - she's wonderful about caring for most everything and is a great mother, wife and person - just doesn't quite have a complete grasp of the bounds of the shell in which she is piloting.

 

I thought it was common sense that most women can't drive. There are exceptions (my fiance's one of them) but I wouldn't let most of my female friends/family drive me anywhere.