I took advantage of my unemployment to work on the car. Maybe I'm getting obsessed over it, but as long as I have (well, had, since I started a new job Friday) time, I need to make sure I have transportation, have freedom. I am nothing without it.
So I bring it over to the mechanic My Father trusts. I went to see him so he could check out the Check Engine light, and I finally have time to bring it during the workweek. I have become more and more concerned with my driver's-side door falling apart, but first things first, I needed to make sure the inside of the car is good.
Unfortunately, it was a waste of time because they can't check the Check Engine light. It did come on after he drove it a bit, but he realized that the plug he needed was something he didn't have. He said that each manufacturer had its own plug until the government mandated the same plug starting in 1996. He said he threw away all the old ones, and I should go to AutoZone because they apparently have it. Besides the fact I had the time to go into the buildings at the University of Minnesota and tear away any of the experiments I could have done, this was a waste of time.
(Aside number one: I got there around 10, which is when they said they were open. I got there a quarter after 10. I see their sign says they're open at 9. So now that's wrong? Meanwhile, no one was there. I waited a few minutes because I didn't want to lose the Check Engine light that turned on while I drove down there, but I was wasting too much gas, so after five minutes I turned it off. Still no one there. Finally, after a half-hour of waiting, I slipped the keys under their door and left. I voicemailed them saying that it's my car blocking their door, please get to my situation when you can. They came ... well, the guy called me a half-hour after I left my car. Is it too much to ask to not only drop off my car when I said I was going to drop off my car, but also to be open when you say you're going to be open?)
(Aside number two: There was another mechanic, in Uptown, which I thought did a very good job. But last year, or maybe two years ago, when I wanted to bring my car in, they said they would not service it because it's too old. I remember him specifically telling me that their cutoff for working on cars is 1996 -- which is the year the government apparently mandated the same Check Engine plug. Coincidence?)
So at the end of that day, instead of going to AutoZone, I went to yet another mechanic. This one is the mechanic just down the street from the Mechanic Around The Corner, the one I will no longer go to because I no longer trust them. On the other hand, these guys found the nail in my front driver's-side tire that was the cause of all the slow loss of pressure in it, something The Mechanic Around The Corner disregarded.
I dropped the car off overnight. However, the next day (the day where I got double-teamed, by the way) they not only said they could not get the Check Engine light to turn on, they would not be able to check on the reason for it because, like the car shop My Father trusts, they don't have the right plug for a car as old as mine. So that too was a waste. At least neither place charged me.
I told them as soon as I got the keys back that the light was going to turn on as soon as I drive out of there. And it did, thus continuing my love-hate relationship with my car. I know the light gets a bit persnickety; it came on when I drove downtown to start work, but it hasn't come on driving around the neighborhood today. But I don't know if it coming on only intermittently means it's safe. I really think there's something wrong with the engine. That's why I wanted to get that taken care of first. Now that I have work and don't have time to bring it, this is going to come on and it's going to drive me crazy because I think it's going to finally lead to a very serious breakdown of my car.
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Then again, these are bad times for my car. There are several things wrong with it, any one of which I am convinced will mean the death of my car, or at least will finally convince me to put it out to pasture for good.
It's become summer in Minnesota. With that I hear different things coming out of my car. For the past several years, for example, there is the "second sound" that comes on whenever it's hot out and I turn on the air conditioning.
There's something else I've noticed this year, however. This sound makes this noise, this "wobble," whenever I drive the car up to, I think, third gear, which is around 30 and 45 m.p.h. It's as if the transmission is having a difficult time switching gears. Which leads me to another big problem. ...
... which is the transmission itself. I have felt this hesitation whenever I try to accelerate, for some time, but it's gotten even more difficult, from time to time, over the past winter. I thought the polar vortex we went through beat up my car pretty good, but since the weather has started to warm this problem still remains. This is something I think is different from the time I got the car back from The Mechanic Around The Corner and I couldn't accelerate beyond 10 m.p.h. -- this is at a different speed, but the resistance, the feeling that my car is rearing back just as I am trying to push the car to a greater speed, is still there. I felt that (along with the "second sound" "wobbling") today.
Told the mechanic My Father trusts and he says he thinks the transmission's slipping. Shit. This new mechanic, on the other hand, says that nothing's wrong ... well, besides the fact that the transmission's overfull. Did I do that? I don't think I did, but I don't remember. So I'm hearing one thing from one mechanic and the exact opposite from the other. Just great.
Interestingly enough, the one thing they both agree on is that if I try to flush the transmission (which is something I believe I had done last year, but for some fucking reason I don't have the record for it -- where in the goddamn hell is that fucking receipt? I swear I had it done last year), there's a chance that I might make the situation worse. In fact, both said that flushing the transmission might destroy the transmission. How the fuck does that happen?
So I'm stuck. One doesn't think there's a problem; both say that if I try to do something about what I think is a problem, I might make the problem worse. Fuck my life.
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Oh yeah -- now the rattling from my door is getting even worse. I can hear it now; it used to rattle just a bit, but now it's rattling longer, a lot longer. I think another of the clips that these doors attach to came loose. I don't know if my door's hanging on by a thread, but it wouldn't surprise me.
It's gotten to the point where, if I'm stepping out of my car, I don't close the door like normal people. No, I have to bend down and push the door shut at the place where the exterior part of the door is separating from my car. I wonder if it makes me look weird, but I think I'm doing that in order to save my car. Nevertheless I can't do that if I'm stepping into my car. I used to try and close the door as gently as possible, but it's so separated that anything I do will result in a "bringgggggggggg" sound that makes me shudder.
So if no one can check the Check Engine light, and if I can't do anything about what I believe is a slipping transmission, this door is now the next problem I have to fix. Unfortunately I don't know when I'll have the time. Well, I should say this: I have been told by my supervisor at this new job that the work week is flexible. As long as I work 40 hours a week, and I am consistent with my work week as much as possible, I can take time off for, for example, bringing my car in. That's good. Too bad that two weeks from now I plan on switching my schedule around to see if I can catch the first game of the World Cup on Thursday, June 12. And next week I don't plan on taking advantage of this schedule flexibility because it's only my first week and I want to make a good impression on her. So I have two weeks, at least, where I have to deal with a door that may or may not be falling apart. I swear I'll hop into my car one morning, slam the door shut, and hear this loud clang, and when I step out I'll see my entire door rattling around the driveway.
Once again, fuck my life.
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Oh yeah, one other thing. The taillight warning light has come back on. It was on right after I got my car back from The Mechanic Around The Corner, but then it stayed off. But yesterday, after I got off work, it came on, and it's been on since.
Before all that I noticed that the left taillight assembly had this accumulation of moisture inside it. I wanted to take today to wipe it off, but I forgot/failed to realize that the outside is blocked by all the housing for the lights. I did notice that the rubber weatherstripping has slipped on one end of the assembly, and the rain probably is getting in through there. For a minute I thought about asking the car parts store (where I was going to wipe down the taillight assembly; I use their tools, liberally) for some adhesive, but then I realized I'm too lazy to do such a thing.
By the way, one of the taillights is off. It's one of the ones I tried to fix, one of the ones The Mechanic Around The Corner said he fixed. The bulb is new, so either the socket is bad, the wiring is bad or the moisture that's coming in is shorting it out. Whatever the case I will not do anything about it because I have neither the energy nor the skill set to fix it.
Finally, one more time: Fuck my life.
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