First car... wow. 1970 VW Bug. Never tried jumping a curb, but it DID have a mind of it's own. It used to start honking the horn on it's own, blow fuses at will - boy did I get good at changing fuses, it would pop the tailpipe at will, I had to keep track of my miles because the gas gage fuse used to blow... if I had passengers in the back, the fender rubbed the tire... but all in all I loved that car - paid $1500 bucks for it and got every dime back out of it when I sold it 10 years later for a used 1987 Kawasaki Ninja... I used to pick up my girlfriends on that thing... parents LOOOOVED me! Still have the dang thing! NCTomatoman - wasn't a olive green pontiac tempest in My Cousin Vinnie??

The most expensive way to have personal transportation that anyone can adopt is to always be driving as new of a car as someone thinks that they can afford. Your Beetle has (will have) 25,000 miles on it and it will be paid off. That car with service and yes some repairs could easily see twenty years of age and ten times the mileage, although not at the pace you are using it. Yours will only have around 100,000 miles on it, at approximately 20 years. On the day you pay off your Beetle. Take $100 and go open a brand new savings account. When the next payment on your Beetle would have been due if you had not of paid it off, you have to make a deposit to that savings account in the amount that your payment would have been. The only time you can use the money that goes into that savings account is if your Beetle needs a repair that exceeds $1000. Or on the day when it finally does not make any sense to keep your Beetle. Repairs like brakes, tires, fluid changes, etc all have to be budgeted for and paid for through your normal income. You must still make that payment to your car savings account even when you have these other normal automobile expenses, because that's what it would be like if you actually had a car payment. Now "IF" you follow these rules, and you make your Beetle last as long as you can, when the day finally comes where you need to replace it, it will have provided you with enough cash for you to go buy anything that you want, with double (maybe even triple) that amount left over. Trading your car in every time one is paid off lets someone else have all of that money. Yes your car will break once in a while, and you will need a good mechanic/technician to keep fixing it, but that is what we do. One of my regular customers has been practicing this now for well over ten years and her Oldsmobile is getting pretty rough. She is going to put about $1300 into it next week, and we are thinking that she will only go two, maybe three more years with it. It will go over 200,000 miles next year. She is free to replace it any time she desires, but loves the $40K+ that she has in her car bank account too much right now to change cars yet. She wants 50K in there first if she can do it, and then she is planning on spending about $30K on her next car. Her next car, will be the first brand new that car she has ever owned. The Oldsmobile was two years old when she bought it. When she buys her next car, she will keep making the car payment to her savings. She is going to have the dealership give her the new payment amount first, pay cash for the car and then from that time on make the new higher payment to her savings.

I had the orginal battery still in my car they said with this car it has to be put on the computer to conform to the engine???????????????????? I'm not quite sure what they mean by that, except that there are some settings on the car (like whether the alarm horn beeps, the radio can be used, and some others) which can be set by computer but which may default to factory-standard if the battery dies. But the important thing is that they finally fixed it for less than another fortune. Please keep that dealership/garage in mind for your future maintenance. You definitely want to keep track of competent technicians!

Janie..I just called my son in PA who has done auto painting & detail for 18 yrs now. Left a message to call me with advise for you. IF the garage that's going to be fixing your panel are also the ones (I'm assuming they are) who'll be repainting it? Call and ask them for application advise-and if you give them the make & model & original color of the car? They can look it up & can make up the exact color, and give you a tiny jar of it to use. My son gave me some for my 2000 Sebring when someone 'dinged' me in a few spots. If he should call me back-I'll post to you.