I bought my Birdy a few weeks after I got my liscence on my second try (got the bald head guy... Mr. I Fail Almost Everyone). I thought we got a good deal on her for at $1,800, but I new we could've gone lower. The salesman told us that she was at the dealership for nearly 6 months, so it was costing them money. Actually, the salesman didn't even think she'd run. He said the battery died, but when he tried to start her up she roared alive. The paint was pretty screwed up (clearcoat was chipping off), but exterior looks shouldn't matter right!? It was also purple! I'm not very fond of purple, but it wasn't just any purple...it changed color in the sun to a tealish color. Anyways, all I really cared about was the V8. That was one of my requirements for a car. V8, cheap, and American.

It was pretty scary driving out of the dealership lot. Took about 10 minutes to turn out into the busy street, and I made it worse by forgetting to adjust my seat beforehand. She had a pretty rough ride, which was understandable. Her former owner was a cop, and numerous rental car drivers who broke her in quite well for over 100K miles.

The next important, but forgetable milestone of my car was my first accident. Basically, I hydroplaned off the road nearly into a ditch on my way to school. We were pretty lucky, the right rear tire landed perfectly on a rock so that it balanced the car saving it from a plunge or roll into the ditch. I learned not to punch it on a wet day, and particularly not on Valentines Day, when it occured. The accident ended up costing over $500 to repair the underbody and fuel lines.

Some of the other incidents involving my car were when I backed into a tree bending my right rear view mirror. I've also dented the right side of the car when I scrapped against a pillar, and scratched the paint when I backed up into a rock. I've also had problems when I did my first and only "real" mod to my car by removing the intake silencer. This screwed up my MAF sensor, as well as my fuel mileage. At the same time, the car started to rumble and overheat when the engine fan turned on. That turned out to be a broken fin on the fan, which was repaired along with the MAF.

Unsatisfied with the stock deck and speakers, I installed four 5x7 speakers all around, and an MP3 CD Player Deck. I've also took off the center caps, and spray painted the bolts, etc... with color-matched paint. To take care of the nasty yellowing the headlights develope, I bought a headlight restoration kit off of eBay. So far so good, a bit more clear, but still hard to see at night.

History repeated itself as I was once again not satisfied with the low frequency response of the 5x7's. My summer project was to buy and amp & subwoofers, and build a sealed enclosure. I was planning on just one subwoofer, but ended up with two. This meant building a box twice as big, and leaving my amplifier slightly underpowered. It was quite a wood-working project, and after a few months it was all finished.