My husband and I have to say goodbye to our car which we’ve had for a little more than nine years now, our 2013 Chevy Malibu “Sylvia.” She clocked in at about 134,000 miles, lower mileage than any of our past cars when they ceased to be our cars. 😢

Her timing chain came loose and caused massive internal damage to the engine. The cost to repair it exceeds what she is worth to us. She died at a busy intersection while we were camping the weekend of Juneteenth.

Thankfully a local repair shop supplied us with a loaner. We’re returning it today, and will be borrowing a car from my folks until we get our next wheels.

It’s not even the first time this kind of catastrophe has happened with this car! 😲

She will live out her days without us. The automotive shop that we had her towed to is taking her off our hands on exchange for the few  hundred bucks of labor they performed on her to figure out what was wrong.

The owner said he’ll have some “kids” work on her, and they’ll be able to drive her around if they can fix her. Better than thinking about her just being scrapped for salvage.

She was a finicky car, and she had her share of problems. She only liked synthetic oil – which she didn’t exactly sip like fine bourbon – and she would definitely let ya know if you waited too long to get her oil changed! And if you didn’t put on your seat belt fast enough! 😂

We just can’t handle another costly repair to this car. 💰

We’ve had some great memories with her! She took us to and from Virginia in 2017, and took us to the U.P. (Michigan’s Upper Peninsula) and back for my niece’s high school graduation in 2019. Though I think we had to take her to the shop after this trip for a bearings replacement!

She also took us on quite a few trips to Northern Michigan.

Her lack of cargo space made it a challenge for me to pack her for camping trips. But I was always up to the challenge!

A good thing about her making her different from all of our past cars was that her AC didn’t die! ❄️

She nearly died on us when we were on a camping trip in 2021 (timing belt again). 

We also had expensive repairs made to her in October, 2019. Her Carfax report would make anyone cry!

She was not exactly a reliable car. But it’s still sad to see her go.

We’re going to be car shopping over the next few days. We are probably going to be buying our first foreign car. Even my dad, who worked his entire career in the auto industry for three different car companies (GM, Ford, and Roush Racing), has lightened his stance on imported cars. 

I mean…how many supposed “domestic” cars are made abroad with imported parts anyway? And how many supposed “imports” are made in the US? 🤔 Labels are… just that.

Lines are definitely blurred like a Marc Ronson song. Damn now I’m gonna have this song in my head now 😂 🎵🎶

To finish out this blog, here are some photos of our previous cars: