More car trouble

So, on the way home from work on Monday Derek's car, the fun Neon, started to act weird. So Derek called Tynan's and the next morning he called right when they opened. They are suppose to look at it this Monday since Derek had to go on a work trip to Oklahoma until tonight. So now we get to see what happens again. Luckily Derek got a 12 month warranty on the engine and the check engine light is on again. Personally, I am hoping that the Tynan's dealership just gives Derek a better car like our old Saturn.

Lizzie is 2 !!

Lizzie is 2 but if you ask her she will say she is 5!! She turned two on Friday and she's starting to act like it. We had a lot of fun the whole day acting like Mickey mouse club house, that's what she finally settled on. First it was whinny the pooh and then it was Princesses and then it became mickey mouse. Grandma found some old Minny mouse ears that she wore the whole day. We had a mickey CD from the library that had a whole bunch of birthday games on it and so we played those before the boys went to school.

Derek's week off

Derek had a week off before Ethan and Isaac went to school. We had a lot of fun that week so I thought I would share the pictures. We went swimming (at the Windsor swim beach), fishing, bowling, to the aquarium, the zoo and a candy factory tour. It was so much fun I wish we could do it all the time, but I'm sure our pocket book wouldn't like it.

First day of school

Ethan and Isaac star:ted Kindergarten yesterday!! They were so thrilled. Getting on the bus at 11:34 was great with only their kindergarten buddies, but coming home with the big kids was another story. When they got off the bus I asked them how it went and Isaac said, "That was a nightmare." He was talking about the bus ride home. Ethan heard someone being mean to another Ethan and he thought they were talking to him. But other than that school was fun.

It looks like I have two sets of twins!!

A couple of weeks ago my sister Tammy and I went to the zoo with our kids. Her daughter Julia and Lizzie are close to the same age, (Julia is 4 months older) they are the same height and almost have the same hair color. They have always held hands and walked around and they love to be by each other. Lizzie always pretend to talk to Julia on her phone. So we had to take pictures of them together while we were at the zoo. (Just in case you are confused, Julia is in the dark pink, Lizzie is in the light pink.)

More on the elusive car that I purchased on June 27th

Late Thursday afternoon (July 3rd), I called Tynan's again. I hadn't heard from them. After talking with 3 people, they took my number to call me back. A few minutes later, they did call me. They had found an engine to put in my car. It had 75k miles on it though. I immediately told them I didn't want that engine. If I had wanted a car with 75k miles on it, I would have bought a completely different car with that many miles on it. I told them that the mileage needs to be at most the 55k that the car I bought had. They said that they would continue looking.

So now, it's early Monday afternoon (July 6th). Still no calls. So this time, I called and asked for my salesman (Otto Palmer). I expressed my frustration that I haven't gotten any calls from them unless I initiated the call first. I told him that I've owned a call now for about 10 days and I've only driven it that one day to work. He apologized for the bad service and said that he would notify the service department of my frustrations. He said that the service department continues to look for another engine for me, but he hasn't heard if they have found one or not. I sent him my email so he could pass on the info to the service department so they could even email with updates if they get busy.

In my email to Otto, I included a link to this blog too... maybe they'll read it and see your comments... So comment and let me know what you think that I should do and what Tynan's should do. I'm curious to hear your opinions.
___________

I just got a call back (I guess that call to Otto put a fire under things a bit). They found an engine with 61.5k miles on it. That's much closer to the 55k that it had. I told them that I would prefer to have a less miles on the engine, so they are going to continue looking. He even told me that he'd call me back this afternoon.
___________
Tuesday Morning
I got a call yesterday evening and again this morning. They're doing a much better job communicating now. They still haven't found an engine with less than 61.5k miles. They've offered a 12month/12kmile warranty on the engine in addition to the 3month/3kmile warranty on the rest of the power train. I imagine that they'll call me back this afternoon.

"The car's engine needs to be replaced."

"The car's engine needs to be replaced." Ever heard this before? Yeah, it's bad news. Our Saturn finally died last week (Thursday). A piston popped off a rod and bad things happened. The mechanic advised us to just get a new car because that would be cheaper than paying for a new engine on a car will probably need more work soon.

So I spent most of Friday and Saturday shopping for a new car. Saturday afternoon, I was able to limp the Saturn to the Tynan dealership in Ft Collins and get $100 for the trade. Knowing what I know now, maybe I should have asked to a straight across deal.

I traded it for a 2002 Dodge Neon. I noticed that the engine light came and asked them to take care of that. My mistake. I should have shunned the car. But I gave them the benefit of a doubt. After all, they gave it to me in writing that they would fix any issues with the car. If it couldn't be fixed, they would reverse the deal.

So begins the real adventure. On Tuesday, I dropped it off at the appointed time so they could take care of the engine light. They gave me a loaner so I could get to work. Around 3pm I called them (I hadn't heard from them yet). They said that the wiring and spark plugs needed to be changed. They had been pretty busy and had not completed the work yet though. I would be able to pick it up the next day.

I call them late on Wednesday afternoon (again, they didn't call me). After talking with about 4 people who didn't know anything, someone in the service department promised to call me back after they figured out what was happening. When he called back about 15 minutes later, I got the news. They had replaced the plugs and cables. They still saw some issues and did some testing. The compression on the first 2 cylinders was fine, but the third cylinder was very low. They checked that out and found water in the cylinder. They also found leaks. Then came the phrase that was all too familiar. The car's engine needs to be replaced.
So, they're going to replace the engine. They've told me that I should get it back next week sometime. So in the first 10 days that I'll have owned this car, I'll only have it for 2 days. I just hope that this isn't a trend.

It's only Thursday, but I'll let you know what happens next!

To the zoo with Lexa

Two weeks ago we went to the zoo with my friend Steffanie and her daughter's Lexa and Clara. I didn't download the pictures until now so they are a little old but still fun. Ethan and Isaac love playing with Lexa and hopefully in a year or so Lizzie and Clara will be good friends. We saw the baby giraffe wondering what the peacock was doing with his feathers outstretched; the only problem was that I didn't get my camera out in time to get the perfect shot; don't you hate it when that happens.

Girly Lizzie

Today Lizzie woke up from her nap and saw her sparkly pink gloves on her dresser. She immediately wanted to wear them, and she wanted to wear her pink tutu. Then I asked her if she wanted her fairy wings and of coarse she did. Then she wanted to dance on the bed and look at her self in the mirror. So of coarse being the mom that I am I took pictures. A while ago she was wearing my shoes around the house, so cute!

My Boys are 5!!!

So Ethan and Isaac turned 5 on Wednesday! To celebrate we went to the Drive-in on Tuesday night and saw "Up". Lizzie did not want to go to sleep because there was to much going on around her. So we had to leave right after Up was over at 11:15. The boys love the Drive-in and all the treats that we buy before it.

The next day we Daddy took their birthday off of work, yeah. We went to the Greeley Fun Plex. The boys went a while ago with Daddy, but I was sick and could come with. So, that is what they wanted to do for their special day. They had so much fun and Lizzie actually put her head back in the water and didn't really mind getting splashed by all of the kids above. They loved the water slides.

This week they will have their actual birthday party with family. They wanted to wait until Grandma Moogie was coming up to have cake.