Good Things and One Bad Thing About Our "New" Car

A few good things about our "new" car:

One word- Reverse. How great is it that we now have a car that goes in reverse? It's awesome! That's how great it is. We can go forward AND backward with no pushing involved.

Two words- Rear defrost. The rear defrost broke on Milo after the first or second winter. This car has the most amazing rear defrost... Better than the windshield defrost which is slightly unfortunate. Still, it's great to be able to see out the back window.

Three words- Made of metal. I hit a deer... A DEER! And the damage was so much more minor than it would have been on a lighter car: A small hole in the radiator- which is now replaced with a new radiator- and a dented hood/front of the car. If you look at the front of the car, I've obviously hit SOMETHING, but one wouldn't immediately assume it was a large animal.

And now one bad thing in as many words as I wanna use- The car doesn't start on it's own in temps below 10F. This morning it was 0 degrees outside when I tried to start the car. It started for about 5 seconds before sputtering off. After that it refused to do anything. I had to call a coworker to get a ride to work. Branden didn't even manage to get it started until 2 this afternoon.

It's cold again tonight. In an attempt to keep it warm enough to start, Branden has literally tucked our car in with a charger on the battery, a light under the hood and two blankets tucked over/around the hood. We've heard that the light under the hood helps keep it warmer and Branden says that the battery charger will (a) keep the battery from being low in the cold and (b) keep it warm because charging batteries are warm...? The blankets, however, are all him. It makes me laugh but it has a bit of sense to it. We'll see how things worked in the morning.

We really need a block heater or something like that but, for reasons that I cannot recall right now, Branden said no to the block heater. I think it was because we'd only need it for the next couple of months. We are DIRT poor, but I'm still willing to pay for something I only use 3 months out of the year if it means that I'm not getting to work an hour later than I'd planned. So my next idea- not a block heater- is to maybe buy a small electric blanket and spread that under the hood overnight and see how that does. We do have a garage but, unfortunately, Branden's BROKEN car is in there... And there's not a door on the garage and it's not insulated so it's really not that much warmer than the outside, but that's not the point.

So while the good generally outweighs the bad on this car, the one major bad thing kinda makes the car unusable. At least there's something we can do about the problem and even 11F is warm enough to allow the car to start. No matter what, I am a fan of having a car and I appreciate my parents' generosity.