Had to put the old girl down

I know. I had an '03 Focus that gave me thirteen years of cream puff service. The final two years it just flat became unreliable. I could live with the repair expenses, but I absolutely had to have reliability.

the past four years or so my older daughter had been using her - she was actually fairly reliable, but was just used for local travel due to her increasing age.

I remember before I handed the torch to my daughter - I was driving with her down the highway in rush hour and suddenly the gas pedal went completely to the floor with no resistance. I was now coasting in rush hour traffic where one could drive in the break down lane - fortunately a little distance away I spied a big grassy area off the highway and coasted onto it.

A spring had rusted through under the gas pedal - when AAA arrived the tow truck driver said - I'd never seen anything like that happen before! My mechanic was able to fix it for just a few dollars fortunately it was an inexpensive part and too little time to fix.

Things like we could only fill the gas tank half way because it was rusted at the top; that the car sometimes hesitated; that it was a bit of an eye sore; that it leaked when it rained hard. All those things and then finally the brakes went where it wasn't just the pads - that was the one thing my mechanic had said before as long as you have good brakes the car is still safe.

Well we had to let her go.