Cars are an essential part of our day-to-day life, taking us from place to place. Without cars, our way of life would be different and probably not for the better. In this modern day and age, people enjoy modifying and changing their cars from the factory default. Some of the modified cars look great, others not so. I myself have a 2003 BMW 325I and I have some good car stories, but I’ll share just one with you. I also wanted to ask Apex students and teachers if they had any good car stories they wanted to share.

This past summer, I drove to Person Co. to buy a BMW. My original plan was to buy a motorcycle, but my parents made me an offer I could not resist. Person County is a rather small, country county with fun driving roads, and it is seated around Roxboro, NC. After about a month of ownership, I was driving home from Raleigh one mid-morning. It was about eleven, and I had some business to attend to near downtown. The important part to understand about this story is my window tint. I have window tint around all of my car, even the back windshield. This causes the back to look wavy, and it’s not an issue while driving since the mirrors work well. When I was going to Raleigh, my car had been shifting kind of weird. I thought nothing of it at the time. On the way home, I hit a small pothole on the highway. I looked back and thought I saw smoke, but I was convinced it was simply my window tint. I got off US 1 and onto highway 64. As the light turned green, I tried to go and my car just violently stuttered. I was able to get my car to a safe spot and called the person I bought it from. After discussing, I turned my car back on, and smoke started to pour out of my exhaust. Lo and behold, my PCV had been flooded with oil. This was causing oil to be burned and led to a bluish-tint smoke to run out of my exhaust. It was not a good result for my wallet either. It cost around $500 to fix.

I interviewed Mr. Beitler about his experience with cars, and he had one really good story.

Q: What is a car that is the most memorable?

A: My brother bought an Astro Van for ten dollars. It was a yellowish-tan color, like the round tables we have here at school. He bought it from some carpet company, and it had around

190,000 miles. When you would hit the gas, the gas meter would go down, so you never really knew how much gas you had in the van. If you parked on a hill, sometimes it would say empty.

The heat would turn on when you would hit railroad tracks, or while you were driving, you could slam the passenger door shut, and it would work. But it would only work while you, driving. That car was full of fun. We broke the sliding door handle off one night trying to get something out around eleven. We had to force it out the back, and we weren’t sure if the back handle was broken. We decided to put speakers in the van, and my brother used zip ties to hang two behind the passenger seats. He also put curtain tassels to “spice it up.” We also had a sub and an amp in the back. So here we had a ten dollar van with a $300 sound system in it. Somebody broke into the van and took the sub and the amp. My brother was mad because they didn’t just take the entire van. (So the sound system was worth more than the van?) Yes, it absolutely was.

The other story I have was in Cleveland. This was about three years ago. I had a Jeep Liberty. We were in a bad area in Cleveland. On the way, my brother got a flat tire. He was driving a Veloster at the time, which was a terrible car. His friend had a flat tire earlier that day. In one day we had two flat tires. The best part is the Veloster’s have no spare tire. We tried to use the slime stuff, to patch the tire but it was a hole in the tire wall. We had to get to get a cab ride back to my brother’s house, and we go the next day to get his car towed and everything. We had to wait two hours for a tow truck. My brother got into my Jeep, and I made fun of him, saying that he didn’t shut the door hard enough. He slams the door, and the window on the passenger side drops and falls down into the door. The entire system is broken. It’s ten degrees outside, and we are in Cleveland, and I don’t live in Cleveland. I was in college at the time, so I told my Dad, and he drove it about an hour from Cleveland to our hometown to get it fixed. He drove it the whole way with the window down in ten-degree weather. It was snowing back some of the way.

Cars are fun but can be really tricky! Let us know if you have a good car story below!