red coupe chronicles

i’ve never owned a red car…

…the ufc has, but they were always SUVs, so they weren’t really sporty. i had always been told when i was growing up that red cars, particularly coupes, get pulled over more than any other vehicles. i always figured that for bullshit, at least when it came to blaming the car.

let’s face it – i’ve never owned a red coupe for a simple reason…i’m not a “red coupe” guy. they’re out there. believe me. and they’re more abundant than you think. they drive like idiots. they park in handicapped spaces. they cut you off and then immediately slow down.

yeah, they’re THOSE people.

so a buddy of mine recently ditched his gas guzzling big tired behemoth of a truck for a small red coupe. this was not by choice. the truck had been a money pit as long as i’d known him with various battery-sucking electrical issues due to multiple light kits and amps and speakers.

then shit got real.

he felt like his brakes weren’t as firm as they should be, so he called up a buddy of his who was a mechanic on the side. said buddy told him where his brake reservoir was and how to check it. sure enough, it was slightly low, so he topped it off. AFTER he ran some errands and pulled back in his garage he went to put said bottle of fluid back on the the shelf when he realized he’d fucked up – it was power steering fluid!

he tried emptying the reservoir with a turkey baster and completely refilling it with brake fluid but the damage was done – it was already down in the hoses and calipers and such, and soon after became (literally) months of his brakes randomly locking up and parking his truck roadside over and over again causing him to miss work over and over again. finally, after the brakes caught fire once and burned up the ABS wires causing even more catastrophic brake failure, he traded the truck for a 2002 acura coupe. a 2002 RED acura coupe.

he got pulled over twice in fifteen hours.

the first time they said his temporary plate was “flapping too much” (that’s not a thing) but ended up popping him for no insurance on the acura (i have since told him since there was zero paperwork on the title or transfer he should fight the ticket saying he was test driving it for the weekend and therfore covered by his current insurance). the next day he was pulled over for rolling through a yellow light and popped for no license (his license had expired on his birthday back in january). prior to this, despite all the issues with the truck, he’d never been pulled over.

so maybe there is something to that red car shit after all?