A Lemon!

by Buck
(Oklahoma)

This happened about thirty years ago. You'll probably laugh and in a few more years maybe I can.

Writing about my hunting truck got me to thinking about the other vehicles I've owned. Most were great, and I enjoyed owning them. But one was a horrible lemon. I still have no confidence in anything with that four letter word on it.

My wife and I bought a flower shop in 1978 and put my small photography business in it. We thought were going to get rich like everyone who goes into business:-(

I was not excited about the flower business. I was excited about my photography, and the almost new delivery van we were getting in the deal. I thought it would make a great vehicle for hunting/camping. I never used it camping for fear of being stranded somewhere!

After some time in the business reality had found a home: The flower shop was a difficult business. We were struggling with big payments, customers who didn't pay, or were slow to pay.

To make matters worse the almost new van began to have problems. The cruise control quit, and the inside wall panels were coming off, but more important it wasn't running right. To try and save some money we took it to a local "mechanic". Bad choice, it seemed he did more harm than good!

Soon it was "really running rough" I called it a 3 cylinder V8. It had little power, was leaking oil, transmission fluid, and it was burning lots of gas. We started using our station wagon for most of the flower deliveries.

We needed a big van at times and couldn't afford a new one, so we kept the clunker for years. Most of the time it was parked; nothing much went wrong when it was parked.

I learned to replace water pumps, and fuel pumps quickly myself. I put 4 water pumps, and 5 fuel pumps on it, or it may have been 5 and 4. When we finally traded (gave it away) it only had 48,000 actual miles on it.

We took it to the city; out of town; to trade. It broke down on the way. It was only another water pump which I replaced. We finally limped in to the dealership with it overheating.

The smiling salesman came out to great us. (I'd been truthful; I'd told him it was junk.) He said, "It doesn't look so bad." as he opened the big, broken, sliding door before I could stop him.

One end of the heavy door fell off and hit him on the foot. That guy showed tremendous restraint, he turned red, appeared to be in extreme pain, but he didn't use any four letter words.