Bye Bye Blue Belle

The car that we believed had a lot of life left in it, actually did not. The car that Holly owned was a 1997 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. It was her grandma's car before Holly got it. That is where the name Blue Belle is from. It was a huge improvement at the time compared to Holly's old car. Blue Belle only had 45,000 miles on it and was running great.  

 Holly had received the car when she was a junior at the U of M. The car made it through a lot. It was her mode of transportation between Iowa and home during her time at Iowa State University. 

Before Blue Belle came to its end, it made quite a few trips between Milwaukee and Minnesota. My Jetta is near its end because the rust is taking over we ended up driving Blue Belle home more often even though my Jetta got better gas mileage.

 This is the route of all problems with Blue Belle...the ENGINE!!!! It really didn't start to have any problems until Holly moved home from Iowa. It started with the idle on the engine and was down hill from there. We always got the problems fixed but something new came up. When we went home for Christmas, the engine was making noise and it sounded like a belt. Brought it in and found out the transmission was the problem. They replaced the fluid and did a few other things but they said it would be going out in the future. The temporary fix made the problem go away but in February the engine started making noise again. I brought the car to the shop that I have been going to since we moved to Milwaukee. Not knowing what the problem was, I said just do a diagnostic of the car and figure out whats wrong before we make any repairs. They said that it was the rod bearing and it was starting to knock. Bad sign. Very expensive to fix and pretty much requires the engine to be replaced. The guys recommend that we don't drive it and start shopping for a new car because rod bearing will eventually fail and the engine will blow. Then the car cannot be moved.  :(

 That day we drove the car home and were completely shocked because we believed after fixing it over Christmas we had some time left. Apparently not. Blue Belle at its end only had 90,000 miles on it and everyone expected it to last longer than that. We started to shop for a new car on all different websites. We were not sure whether we should donate Blue Belle or sell it or junk it. After calling some places, we decided to junk the car. We just needed to drive it there and they would give us $350. The car made it out to the junk yard that was nearly 20 miles away. It was pretty noisy on the whole drive and I really don't know how much life it had left in it. More that everyone that I talked to expected that we would get for the car. This picture of Blue Belle in her final resting place. 

One last thing that we had to do was take the plates off. It was kind of shocking that after the car had been through so much for Holly, all we got out of it at its end was $350 and the plates. Kind of sad.

This was Holly saying her last goodbye. It was really sad for her because she had gotten the car from her grandma and the car had helped her through so much. She had driven it so many times between Iowa and Minnesota and since we moved to Milwaukee. It was really hard to just walk away from it. Blue Belle you will be missed and will always hold a place in our hearts.