The Mistakes I Made

The mistakes I made have made some poor choices and huge mistakes in my lifetime. Although I don’t like making mistakes they make me a more experienced person. One mistake I will never forget, mostly because the money I spent and the time I wasted, was when I broke a piece on my car.

At first It was rather unnoticeable, a slight wobbling noise and a little shake in my steering wheel so I didn’t mind it. I thought there might be dirt in my wheel or my tire was low. Over time it became louder and made the car shake horribly, it even affected my steering. The car would shake so badly I was more focused on keeping it straight then where I was going. Then even the noise was getting worse. Not only was it getting louder it was clunking and scraping metal to metal.

Soon, I decided to try and find the problem myself. I was confident I could find it and fix it and order the piece if necessary. First, I wanted to see if my tires were low or my brake pads were worn down. Sure enough my front and rear left tires were drastically low. I filled them up and went for a test drive. At first the noise was noticeable but the car was still shaking. I brought it back home to keep looking. When I got home I decided to check my wheels and bearings. My bearings looked normal but three of my four tires were bent! So instead of seeing why they were bent I impulsively bought three replacement wheels.I continued to drive the car to school and work the following week, but the noise and shaking still did not go away. Now I was mad and decided to look more in depth.

When I got home I checked the wheels again and of course the one wheel, I didn’t replace had now been bent. Not only was the old wheel bent, so was one of the brand new ones. I decided that the wheels were made cheaply and I would order all new ones. Of course, instead of buying tough, reliable steel wheels, I wanted cool looking ones like my friends. So I spent the money for rather expensive wheels that hopefully wouldn’t bend.

After the wheels were ordered, I kept driving the car on the current wheels while I waited for them to arrive. Yet in my arrogance, I still needed to get places and by driving on the wheels probably made the problem worse. After a day or two of driving the problem was so apparent that it could not just be the wheels. When I got home that day I tore everything apart looking for a problem. I even brought my dad out in the garage to help. Sure enough, seven and a spare wheels later, my rear driver side strut was broken. I felt defeated and stupid. At least in all the chaos, when I ordered my new wheels it was the beginning of winter and I got a deal for all season tires with them.

I learned a lot from this mistake, mostly don’t be impulsively buy things. But also to take my time and ask for help. I learned that I have to find the whole problem first. Yes, I would have still had to replace my wheels and fill my tires, but I would have only had to buy three tires and a strut if I was patient or asked for help. I learned and admitted that I was impulsive and needed to take my time or buy wheels to look cool. If I had found the problem the first time with a little help and some patients, I wouldn’t have bought seven different wheels and wasted my spare.

“1989 Honda Accord” by MSVG is licensed under CC BY 2.0