carless

After a month of being in southern Florida it was obvious that I needed a car by myself and since it was agreed that as part of my job I will receive a car, I did receive one. It was kind of a trade in which P. received a new car (that he picked) and I inherited his old car (a 1991 Lexus LS 400). I didn't want to create an havoc so I accepted it even though it had a few major problems: it was leaking oil to the point that once every 10 to 14 days I had to refill the oil. The speedometer and odometer didn't work, so the speed limit was something I deduced from the speed of the cars going around me and last but not least the engine would start stalling when I reached a certain speed.
The last item is pretty funny because for a very long time I thought that the engine stalls at around 75 MPH, which is well less than what Florida Highway Patrol decides to stop you for speeding. One night I saw FHP lurking on the side of the road, I slowed down and drove just below the speed in which the engine stalls. They still stopped me for speeding and claimed that I was going 90 MPH. That night I learned that I actually reach 90 MPH. Oh well ...
A few months ago the car's AC broke and it would have cost $1.5K to fix it, so no one fixed and I was driving around without AC: think of Tel Aviv in the middle of the summer day and you pretty much understand what is the weather here almost year round. So driving without AC was pretty hard, but I didn't have a choice
Friday night, a week ago, we were going for Shabat dinner. Suddenly there was a sound under the car, like something hit the under carriage. A while later I saw that the engine heat was climbing and was very close to the red zone. We stopped on the side of the street and discovered that the engine was dry. We left the car there took a cab back to P.'s home and took his car. Later we picked up the car again and when we tried to fill the radiator with water we noticed that the water was running out from under the car. We filled enough to drive the car back to S.'s home. The day after I took it to a car shop and they informed me that the radiator needs to be replaced. Talking to the car owner he asked me to take it to another car shop. The other car shop quoted him $1500 to fix the radiator, AC and engine (that is losing oil at the same speed it burns gas). The owner of the car decided to not fix the car and sell it to a junk yard.
This left me without a car :-( Going around without a car here is next to impossible and my life have suddenly become really difficult. Since I'm leaving my current workplace I will need to buy a car myself ...