Alright! So you've got yourself a nice little $500 20 year old shitbox car! Awesome! You can drive around in the rain and not get wet, you get cheaper insurance because you don't care if anyone backs into you in the parking lot, and when the alternator stops working you can hit it with a hammer to restore function. But....one problem. The paint job is 20 years old...been out in the weather...and fading badly. So what do you do? A "professional" paint job in a auto-body place will run you around $1000, with all their stupid fancy masking and taking the hood off and special fancy exact matching paint and stupid glossy clearcoat....but on a old shitbox, why bother? Here's how the math works out:

As you'll learn in the following informative guide, you the average citizen with your can of Tremclad and a 4" roller can still "pimp your ride" with all new paint, increase the resale value by more than you put in, and most importantly be less suspicious to the cops who are on the lookout for your previous colour of car.

Case Study No.1 - Toyota Tercel

Case Study No.2 - Datsun 720 Pickup

Do all yer basic body repairs, fill in those rust holes with bondo and fibreglass, and give all the surfaces a light power sanding.. Make sure you've done all the power sanding BEFORE you start painting. Nothing like a fine spray of rust particles wafting all over your fresh wet paint. Wipe the dust off all the surfaces and give the car a wash. Like it says in the bible, I am a firm believer in only washing a vehicle twice....once before you paint it, and once before you try and sell it to some other schmuck for more than you paid for it. People are all aghast when you tell them you're going to save $975 and paint your vehicle with a quart of Tremclad and a roller....but it looks pretty damn good, and if you're careful with the fine brush work around the trim you don't even have to mask or tape anything up. A 4" wide roller is the ideal size...don't get the super cheap brands either, because they'll start to deteriorate and you get chunks of fuzz and fibre coming off and sticking to the hood. It helps if you are painting the same colour or very close, as then you don't have to worrry so much about getting all the edges of the hood and door frames....in the case of the Datsun, I just left the whole inside of the box in the original faded red. Everything else....one coat! Yep, you're damn right. If it gets some more scratches or fades out in another 3 years, I'll blow another $15 on some more Tremclad and do it again.

Still don't think it's a good idea? Here's a dude who saved $3000 by painting his car with a roller

Since every gas station in BC, Canada now forces you to prepay before filling up, (courtesy of some kid who got run over when he decided he would take the law into his own hands and chase down a car who drove off without paying the sum owing of $12.30), paying for gas with cash has become a tremendous inconvenience.

Most people now use debit or credit cards directly at the pump to avoid the cash alternative, that is waiting in line 3 times (once to check in your pathetic little pile of $20 bills with the attendent, once more when you have to come back to leave another $17.00 because you guessed wrong on exactly how much gas was in your tank to fill it up, and perhaps even a third time to pick up your driver's license which you also had to leave with the attendent for ID), each time standing and waiting behind some fucking moron who can't decide what kind of smokes to buy, and when he finally does, counts out his change in nickles. So instead you stand there at the pump and squint at menus and press buttons and swipe your various cards this way and that, and

"Do you want Air Miles with that?"
"NO"
Please wait....processing
"Do you want Regular PetroPoints"
"NO"
Please wait...processing
"Do you want SuperDuper PetroPoints?"
"NO"
Please wait...processing
"Would you like to sign up for SuperDuper PetroPoints?"
"NO" (just some damn gas!)
Please wait...processing
"How about a printed receipt?"
"NO"
et fucking cetera.

Now here's a little math question for you....suppose you had a credit card with limit of $500 on it, or maybe a $5000 limit card that only had $500 of credit currently available on it, either way it doesn't matter....and you were going on a weekend road trip of quite some distance. Let's say each tank of gas in your vehicle cost $50. How many tankfuls could you purchase? If you said "Gee Bob, $500 divided by $50 would be 10 tanks" you would be sadly mistaken.

You see, each time a BC resident prepays electronically, the gas stations see fit to place a $100 hold on your funds, which may take UP TO A WEEK to be released back to you, even if you pay off the credit card the same day. So the correct answer to our question would be THREE tanks of gas, not ten. $150 of gas + $300 of your money frozen for no good reason, and by the time you stick your card in there for the 4th fillup, guess what, you don't have enough credit left and you're left standing there in the pissing rain with an empty tank and nothing but your own cock in your hand.

And that, amigos is why

(I've got a few more of these if anyone's interested)

Think pre-pay gas sucks? Well, where else do people run off without paying? That's right, restaurants. So besides John McCain, global warming, Biphenal-A plastic, and entire schools being locked down because a photography student was walking with a tripod....another exciting thing we can all look forward to in the future will be handing over your credit card BEFORE you see the menu.

They haven't started laying the greens yet, but I'm sure it will be very soon!