Falling in love with a car can sometimes be as tricky as falling in love with a person—it can be both painful and exciting. There will be highs, there will be lows, and minor quirks and hiccups become magnified as you and your ride grow together, for better or for worse.
Things that didn’t use to bother you become nuisances. Tiny dents and dings become an unbearable sight, and choosing whether or not to drive through a flooded or pockmarked street is suddenly a life or death decision.
If you can relate to what we’re going on about, chances are you’ll find the list below relatable. Here are 10 sights that are sure to break a car lover’s heart.
1) Abandoned vehicles
You often see them gathering dust inside casino parking garages or rotting away in a lonely corner of your neighborhood. It doesn’t matter if it’s an old-school classic or a run-of-the-mill daily driver—no car deserves this fate.
2) No plate, no license
To some, a driver’s license might just be a plastic card, and plate numbers are just a flimsy sheet of metal. But to those who take car ownership seriously, the absence of either or both is a symptom of government ineptitude and the sad state of Philippine motoring.
3) Scratched mags
Doesn’t matter if you’re riding on stock rims or a newly-purchased set of bronze TE37s—if you love your car, messing up your mags is as painful as stubbing your pinky toe on the leg of a solid wood table. The worst part? When you’re not even aware of the cause of damage in the first place.
4) A good car in the wrong hands
You know what we’re talking about. You’re driving down the street when an excessively modified Subaru WRX—or any other car for that matter—pulls up next to you. The ‘owner’ barely looks 21 years
5) Encountering traffic out of town
Few things are more depressing than taking your beloved ride out of town to stretch her legs, only to be met by a sea of cars and trucks on the highway. You exit the tollway hoping things will open up, but alas, you and your ride are just as stuck as the next hundred cars in front of you.
6) Check engine light
It could be a fluke, or it could be a Pandora’s Box of car repairs and casa bills waiting to be opened. "Woe is me. What did I ever do to deserve this?"
7) A beloved model being killed off
You never really had a shot at owning it, but this is a car you just kept your tabs on all throughout—up until the day its manufacturer suddenly decided to discontinue production. Even worse? When you hear about plans to bring a nameplate back from the dead as a run-of-the-mill, market-minded vehicle a la Mitsubishi Eclipse.
8) Leaving their baby in the garage
If you love your car, you definitely hate having to leave it idle in your garage for extended periods of time. You consider every kilometer passed not behind the wheel of your beloved ride a short purgatory.
9) Rusty parts
This is something every car lover—especially lovers of old-school nameplates—dreads. Rust is a constant reminder that nothing, not even the bond between you and your ride, is immune from the ravages of time.
10) The smallest dings and scratches
You take every precaution to make sure your ride gets to and from its destination without incident. So naturally, it’s heartbreaking to be inspecting your vehicle’s fender one day and notice a scratch. To car lovers, even the tiniest bit of damage is enough to ruin their entire week.
