Goodbye To An Old Friend

Back in 2002 I bought a 1988 Toyota 4-Runner with 308,000 miles on it. I did some research and found a number of testimonies with reports of mileage reaching 450, 475k. This one had mostly highway miles and one owner, so I took a chance and flew out to Austin, Texas to buy it and drive it back. It served me well for over three years and more than 50,000 miles including a winter in Canada and a roadtrip around the north-western United States. The day before I was supposed to head down to Santa Maria for Christmas, though, it started to make some serious noises underneath like the transmission was about to drop out. I had to abort driving it down south and I've only driven it a couple times since then but it might be time to say goodbye to it. It's had a hard end of its life living in the city and it became a bit of a burden. It's been broken into multiple times losing three windows in the process and it's a source of countless parking tickets. It gets horrible gas mileage and I just don't think it's worth repairing. The engine runs perfectly but other things are starting to fail so the cost to fix it is going to exceed its value. I'm going to take it to my mechanic just to make sure but I've already been adjusting to life without a vehicle.





What I'm considering doing is donating it and learning to live without a car. I have been thinking about this for a while in anticipation of this eventual outcome and am already starting to implement this plan. I've been riding my bike to work, which is actually faster than driving and I don't have to worry about moving my truck in the 2-hour parking zones. I will need a car for certain things like site visits and inspections but there are a couple companies in San Francisco that offer car share programs: CityCarShare and Zipcar. These allow you to reserve a car by the hour when you need them. Gas, insurance, and parking are all included. I signed up for Zipcar because they have a couple cars near my office and a couple near my house.

For longer trips, such as a weekend or so away, I would just rent a car. It's easy to do online and there are multiple places in the city to pick one up. The one thing I'm going to miss being able to do is make a last-minute decision to go for a bike ride or maybe a one-day trip to Tahoe. But that's a bit of a luxury and I'll just have to learn to plan better. I'll see how it goes and keep you posted.