Visit our Popular Forums

skipgundlach · 08-01-2013, 09:39

Queen For A Day - Free 2000 Mercury Grand Marquis

Those of you of a certain age may recall a TV soap-opera-type show titled
Queen for a Day.

They'd have 4 women come in each time, and of the ones presented per show,
have the audience choose the one with the most compelling sob story. The
winner was feted with a throne, a robe and a crown for the show and got
loads of freebies in the bargain. Runners-up got lesser gifts.

So, while this isn't that at all, the concept is the same. To the greater
need, the gift...

Long time readers of my ramblings know that we gave away our van at the end
of our initial refit 6 years ago, immediately had a wreck, found a gifted
Suburban where we had our wreck, and then, after our rehab, passed it along
to another cruiser in similar circumstances - an extended refit from having
been afloat, with no home or vehicle, and needing transportation.

This one doesn't have the same utility as our prior giveaways, not being a
truck or variant, but it still holds a lot, and does a great job of parts
running and other transportation-dependent chores.

We bought this, and have kept it maintained since then, in the expectation
that we'd find a cheap car less expensive than renting for what we thought
was going to be 6 weeks before we left again. Life intruded, and we are
just now finishing a nearly-2-year refit surrounding about 8 months of
family visits over that time, so it's served us very well.

We bought it with 268,000 miles on it, and have just turned over 295,000. I
expect that it has another one or two hundred thousand miles in it, despite
my wife's expecting it to die literally every day since we bought it. Along
the way, we've done maintenance, receipts kept along with significant ones
from the original owner, among which is new moving parts in all the front
suspension, and an alignment at the same time recently. It has good rubber
and brakes all around, and icy air, as the one-owner we bought it from had
just had it all replaced the previous summer. It had, and still has, a
check-engine light which has not had ill effects other than, currently, the
need to slightly rev the engine before getting under way, else it stalls.
Once you've driven it for a few minutes, it stays running without attention.
The spare has a bent rim, cause unknown, discovered on the last
lube-oil-filter-rotate-balance so replacing that with a junkyard item and
tire would be a good move. If I were keeping the car, I'd do the emissions
and the spare, but for free, it's on you :{))

So, here's the deal, if you choose to accept it. I want to give away our
2000 Mercury Grand Marquis to some cruiser or other person if cruiser
doesn't fit. The candidate would be one who has no vehicle and is in or
entering a long refit during which they'll live aboard their only home,
their boat. After their refit, they'd commit to doing the same, assuming
the car was still running properly, and pass it along.

We currently hope to splash (and thence be gone) on the 26th, but that may
be extended if reality bites us on a couple of last minute things. So, it
would have to coordinate with our schedule.

Pictures can be seen in our 2011-2012 refit gallery (click the link below)
and the next step will be obvious :{))

Please have interested parties email me directly (skipgundlach@gmail.com),
as I may not see responses otherwise.

L8R

Skip

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at Web-Folio -- Your Portfolio on the Web !
Follow us at TheFlyingPigLog : Morgan 461 Hull #2, Flying Pig
and/or Flying Pig Log | Google Groups

When a man comes to like a sea life, he is not fit to live on land.
- Dr. Samuel Johnson

Ram · 08-01-2013, 10:26

Great Idea- pay it forward !!

**capngeo** · 08-01-2013, 10:30

Where is it?

skipgundlach · 08-01-2013, 10:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by capngeo

Where is it?

I KNEW I'd forgotten SOMETHING!

Ft. Pierce Riverside Marina, or left at a home in Vero Beach if not coordinated to the day with our departure...

**capngeo** · 08-01-2013, 10:39

I know a car-less cruiser in Key West...., Let me pass it on
G

skipgundlach · 08-01-2013, 10:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ram

Great Idea- pay it forward !!

We always have, and have been overwhelmed with kindnesses as a result...

Getting another car given to us from someone who didn't even know us was an example (we'd given away our van, recall), in our wreck situation...

skipgundlach · 18-04-2013, 11:49

Queen for a Day update:

No more calls, we have a winner.

A couple bringing their boat back to FL from the Rio Dulce, full-time cruisers and homeschoolers (well, boatschoolers) but for the desire of their daughter to do her junior and senior years in public schooling, are the winners in our giveaway. They'll continue to live aboard, albeit probably in a marina.

Fittingly, they'd done the same sort of thing with their car, giving it away to a couple in the marina whence they departed when they left on their cruise, several years ago, from Bradenton, so this sort of closes the circle.

By the way, I've heard back from Wes Pratt, my original benefactor on the vehicle I did my first QFAD deal on 6 years ago, and he's both tickled that his vehicle was similarly passed along as well as thriving, and that I'm doing the same on this one.

I can think of no more fulfilling thing to do than to provide a fellow full-time cruiser who's sold everything, and gave away THEIR car than to put a ride under them when they return to shore for a couple of years :{)) They've assured me my car will (later) meet a similar fate, so perhaps you'll see them post here in a few years!

L8R, y'all

Skip, finished with the refit and the kids/grandkids/wedding trip, provisioning and shaking down Flying Pig for an East coast run this year

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at Web-Folio -- Your Portfolio on the Web !
Follow us at TheFlyingPigLog : Morgan 461 Hull #2, Flying Pig
and/or Flying Pig Log | Google Groups

When a man comes to like a sea life, he is not fit to live on land.
- Dr. Samuel Johnson

Snore · 18-04-2013, 15:07

Tip of the cap sir!

Fair winds, smooth seas and cloudless sunsets

Kettlewell · 18-04-2013, 15:09

Very nice gesture! Mucho Karma.

skipgundlach · 21-04-2013, 08:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

...Mucho Karma.

What goes around comes around. With apologies for thread migration, that was proven again just yesterday.

Thursday, on the way out from the potluck, I see a guy hauling two 10# aluminum tanks and ask where he gets his filled (thinking I can, after two years in the yard in the area, steer him to a better place than maybe he's trying to go to).

Short story is that he was going to TOSS these (perfectly good) cans because some yahoo at Ferrell Gas said they would be out of date in a few days (May 01 manufacture) and couldn't be refilled, and besides, had the wrong valve anyway; "you'll have to buy new tanks."

He'd ordered a new can over Amazon (thus giving him 12 years before it, too, "became unusable,") I learned, but I vehemently told him he had been given mistaken info. I got his card; he said "they're yours, let me know how you make out" (Hylas 46 owners have different budgets than I do, I guess!).

So, I went back to the boat and mailed him the pix of the '91 tank I'd had revalved and recertified, along with the bill, and citations regarding recertification of tanks after 12 years and every 5 years after that. I then noticed on his tanks that he DID have the OPD valve, and a huge OEM label to prove it.

Phone calls later, where I tell him about the valve and convince him to keep them rather than abandon them (much to my benefit, but if I'd not have intercepted, they'd have been next to the dumpster), I say I'll just take them with mine and get them recertified, and hand him the bill, he thanks me profusely, I take them to fill with my re-valved/recertified tank, and they don't blink an eye and start to fill (they're still legal currently) - but I asked them to do a recert, as this guy would be facing that his next fill, anyway. They did, for all of a buck, each.

Fast forward to a phone call as I'm coming back; he can't return the one he got from Amazon and asks me what I'd do with a spare can if *I* had it. "Sell it!"

"Well, no good deed goes unpunished ! Since I can't send them back, one of them's yours for your trouble!"

We'll get together sometime when it's not raining and I assume I'll have a can for sale soon, as the Admiral refuses to let me bring one aboard :{))

Anyway, I was HORRIFIED that he'd toss these, and angry that he'd been conned, since I knew they were perfectly good (and, had he not seen the light and indeed, just tossed them, I'd have replaced mine with his, as they're pristine, including still having the factory inspection sticker on the inside of the collar); there's no WAY I'd let someone experience that if I had a means to influence a positive outcome.

L8R, y'all

Skip

PS I met him after I got back from the refiller; he insisted (I told him I did it because I liked doing stuff like that, but he refused to be deterred) that I have one of his now-recertified, now filled (he paid me for the fill and recerts before this part), tanks.

What a great world this cruising community is!