Planned obsolescence and the aging automobile

I got nothin right now. Okay, maybe as soon as I start to think about it, maybe there is something. It's my jeep and it's mystery malaise that mechanics can't seem to diagnose. I bought this car a few years back for $700 bucks. A 1987 Jeep Wagoneer Limited. Yeah, it's almost an antique if you consider an antique is anything that is 25 years old, it's coming up on it's quarter century mark with nearly 225,000 original miles on it. Someone took some decent care of it, and apparently didn't take it on any cross country excursions. I found it on Craigslist about three years ago and it has been an adventure learning about all of the idiosyncracies that go along with having an elderly car that just happens to be a Jeep. I've wrestled with getting rid of it numerous times, swearing that I'm not pumping anymore money into keeping it on the road, but for some reason, be it economy, the wont of not having a car payment, or just plain stubbornness I keep fixing little idiotic things that will prolong it's already long lifespan. So far, I've put a new starter on it, new driver's side seat belt, replaced the sway bar (that's a length of metal that keeps the body going the same direction as the wheels), new battery, new radio, new tires, as well as a lot of basic things that old-timey cars just need to get along on the road today.
  
    I guess I've always believed in keeping things, as opposed to throwing things away that aren't worth keeping. I think that comes from having parents that were born in post-Great Depression America. My folks have always been packrats, and I guess I've inherited some of that mindset to a point. While, I'm not loading up my home with a lot of things that I don't need, I still will try to fix what I've got when it breaks as opposed to going out and buying something that has a pre-programmed failure date, which most things these days have. A great many things can actually be repaired beyond their usefulness, and cars happen to be one of those things if you're willing to take the time to investigate what can be done to them to keep them running, that old Jeep is a prime example.

The truth is, I secretly love the thing, and I've like to see it restored to mint condition. Perhaps someday, it will be. But at the moment, the objective is to get it roadworthy to the point where I have enough faith in it that it's not going to kill me. And, that brings me to my current crossroads with this particular 1987 Cherokee XJ with a trim package. Back in March, I had to have the 'lateral sway bar' replaced. Remember, I just told you that keeps the body and the frame(where the wheels are attached) going in the same direction? Well, about that. You see, before I had it fixed I was confronting death most every time I was driving it and going about 35 miles an hour. If I happened to strike a bump in the road, as there are many because as a nation, we don't seem to give a crap about the roads, the thing would start shaking violently and force me to begin a braking maneuver that usually lead me toward the curbside of the road much to chagrin of fellow drivers who happened to have the misfortune of being behind me at the moment. Then, after the car slowed to a speed that was acceptable to the elderly vehicle, it would finally stop all that foolish shaking, and then obligingly decide to carry me forth to whatever destination I had chosen. Typically, nothing too far away, because I valued my continued existence and had the foreknowledge that there was something terrifically wrong with the Jeep. Well, I got that repaired, and for 7 months I was free to explore other little projects that could ultimately force my ancient chariot continued servitude. Until, finally the violent jostling and life threatening  liquefaction of wheel against road made a reappearance about three weeks previous to today, and again Friday morning of last week with a vicious vengefulness. Maybe this thing has just had enough, I don't know.

But, while I still continue to value my life and still am trapped within a limited economy where a car payment is extremely undesirable, I've pursued the possibility of prolonging it's life once again. With a return to the shop which performed the previous work related to the current problem, past invoice in hand, the mechanics are exploring the  problem, and are yet stumped to find a solution. They must be stumped since they are open to expanding their knowledge of the problem at hand based upon information I've provided. Through my own research into this issue, I've come upon a specific term, "Death Wobble". Yes, it sounds rather horrifying doesn't it? It is.

I've been in a death wobble, and it will scare the feces out of your sphincter. Not that I actually soiled myself mind you, but if I had been a lesser man, or happened to have consumed large quantities of watermelon, Mexican food,  chili, or other such repast I may not be relating this so objectively at the moment.

And all of this rambling brings me to this moment right here. It's after a night of pouring over financial transactions, listening to an audiobook of "Pagan Babies" by Elmore Leonard, and dropping by the mechanics with my Dad that I tell you this.

I'm glad that I didn't die on Friday morning behind the wheel of my old Jeep.

Because, from here on, this can play out a variety of ways. I get completely fed up with that POS and have it compressed into a coffee table-sized piece of scrap metal, the mechanics say "oh, it was this bolt here that we forgot to tighten", or they find a family of gremlins that had moved into the wheel-well, or they tell me that they haven't been able to discover what the problem is and I have to hire a Catholic priest to exorcise that demon from the film The Exorcist from the axle, or I just pick the car back up from the mechanics pay for whatever labor was expended, and go on to die at a later unknown date behind the wheel from this undiagnosed problem on my way to do something completely random.

I guess any of those things are possible. Okay, not the gremlins because that's just silly.

But, if I do die. Please, don't let some marketing executive cite my death as a reason for planned obsolescence because that will anger me greatly and I will probably go all Paranormal Activity on your ass in the afterlife.