So the two main problems with my car -- at least for now -- are the power window and the transmission. (The engine could always be a third one, and the leaks are not stopping at all, but pouring a grand into it means that I sealed up all the leaks, therefore it damn well better be, at worst, a problem on the backburner.)
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Today my car was shaking as I drove it to work. I thought it was the cold and the wires were still adjusting to the weather; I think we had the first hard frost of the year this morning.
But when I drove it to the library after work, it continued to shake. And it mostly did its shaking while I was slowing to a stop and as I began accelerating. Uh-oh -- I now realize that it couldn't be the cold. This was just like the last time when I was freaking out about a month ago over what I thought was the tranny having trouble shifting.
But that's what the bottle of transmission fluid in the trunk is for! So even though I was panicking like hell, I drove off to a side street, popped the hood, and poured in about half the remaining bottle. And when I turned the car back on ... well, have you ever seen folks with, I think, muscular dystrophy, who are continually shaking, and when they turn on what is basically an electric pacemaker implanted in their bodies, the shaking immediately stops? Fluid:car::electric pacemaker:person with MD
Of course this raises a lot of questions. When will I have to do add more again? Did I add enough this time? (I felt some shaking as I finally drove home, but maybe I'm paranoid.) Will I get the shaking signs when I need to add more the next time? And what happens if I overfill, something The Mechanic Around The Corner keeps telling me not to do?
Look, I can maintain the tranny every week, but if I'm cutting things close because I need to check on it with more frequency, that's just more reason to say goodbye to the car.
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Meanwhile, what I was afraid could happen did happen through the overnight Wednesday/Thursday; somebody vandalized the window. Maybe.
I was in a rush to leave for work. While I was driving I looked over my shoulder and saw that the window was in fact down. The wind blowing into the car and pushing against the back of my neck made it a cold, cold drive.
But later in the day, upon closer inspection, maybe no one tampered with it. All the tape was there; nothing was missing or torn off or cut away. What happened the evening before this is that I had to move my car from its normal parking spot to just behind my parents' minivan because they wanted to take their new car out for a test drive. I didn't want to move it again, even though I knew that parking my car further down the driveway and much closer to the street will invite someone who's walking down the street at night to play with the tape holding up the power window. I don't think our neighborhood is a dangerous one, but shit happens. And yet I was willing to take the risk.
So I was hopping mad that somebody could have really fucked with my car. But nothing was stolen and nothing seemed to be taken. Which invited the possibility that the tape unstuck on its own. Whenever I drive I hear a sound from the window back there. I thought it was the wind blowing through openings through the tape where I did not lay it totally flat on the window or frame. But instead, possibly it's the sound of the tape becoming unglued.
I grew frustrated Thursday after work that I would again have to run-run back to The Mechanic Around The Corner to help me re-tape the fucker. (The cost of repairing it is cheap enough for me to do it, I just want to wait a credit card billing cycle before I add even more goddamn charges on it.) But I tried pushing up on the window on my own anyway. Even though it's vertical, I actually managed to do it, pull it up all the way. I took off the tape that might have gotten unstuck, pulled off what looked like "good" tape still sticking and put it at the top of the window frame, then got new tape (which I also put in my trunk -- this is why you keep shit with you at all times!!!) and set it back like new ... well, closed, anyway.
It feels good that I can do something like this on my own. This may not be a true sign of independence, but it wasn't going to be good for my ego to run to The Mechanic Around The Corner because that would have been three weeks straight where I've contacted him about something. I plan on doing this in a couple weeks, and hopefully that problem would resolve itself, and I can stop worrying about how my car is going to do with me driving it somewhere. Keep your fingers crossed.
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