The Ultimate Marcus Aurelius Post

ul-ti-mate:
1. being or happening at the end of a process; final:

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”

– Marcus Aurelius

You may remember that I’ve named my car Marcus Aurelius.

My car really has nothing in common with the ancient Roman emperor. But, I figured if I was going to write about the car I needed to personalize it a bit.

Well, we’ve reached the ultimate Marcus Aurelius post. Not, the best, but the last. We started this journey when Marcus Aurelius had 295,000 miles. Well, today – 5000 miles later, he rolled over all the numbers on the odometer.

All the tumblers rolled over

Early morning

Marcus Aurelius is a 1994 Toyota Corolla. That means he’s 28. And on average he’s driven just under 11,000 miles per year. That’s not a huge number, if you think about it. Under 1000 miles a month or 250 per week.

So, what does a car look like after nearly three decades and 300,000 miles?

This is actually by design, not a bug

Missing about half the slider ends

A developing crack in the replacement windshield

What you can’t see is that the flexpipe is completely rusted. That makes the car sound like a muscle car. . .sort of.

All in all, there’s not too much wrong for my 28 year old car. It gets about 30 mpg. It’s a stick shift, manual door locks, manual transmission, manual windows.

Over the past few years I’ve replaced the windshield (clearly needs it again), tightened the bolts that hold the passenger seat in place. I’ve replaced the headlight. Last year the ignition coil went out and I had to replace that. I’ve replaced the battery. I had to install an aftermarket radio. It didn’t go into the original radio spot. That’s what that hole in the dash is from.

I figure at this rate, I can keep it running and I should roll over to 400,000 in about 20 years, give or take.

We’ll check back in with Marcus Aurelius at that point.

Stay safe

Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren. Order Miscellany II, an anthology including his latest short story, “The Mercy System” here

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