A full service contractor (subtitled: The greatest little brother ever)

Last year before we drove to Iowa I had my car completely checked out by the mechanic. My car had been rather noisy lately but the mechanic said that it was more of a nuisance thing and if I could live with the occasional noise it didn't need to be fixed. The noise came and went so it wasn't really much of a big deal until recently. The last month or two the car has been making the noise a lot more often so a few weeks ago, in one of my conversations with our contractor at the office, I mentioned I needed to find a new mechanic since the Saturn dealership had closed. Cyril said that his brother was a mechanic and that his shop was not far from the office. Since I still thought it was only a nuisance thing - and I've been so insanely busy - I haven't had a chance to drop it off yet. Well, I guess I should have.

It has been raining like crazy the last few days. We've gotten a total of about 12 inches of rain in March and 5-6 of those inches have fallen in the last two days. This morning when I was driving to work I drove through an average sized puddle - not too big of one - and right afterwards my "check battery" light came on. I didn't really think too much of it because my battery is less than a year old and I figured it had just gotten wet or something and was a false alarm.

Later in the day Cyril stopped by to check in on how things were wrapping up and I told him I was going to need the name and number of his brother soon because I really needed to get my car into the shop. He gave me grief about not getting it checked out yet and told me one of these days I'd be stranded with a dead car on the side of the road.

Well guess what.....

Tonight when I left the office I was heading to a parent information evening at Hannah's school that was supposed to start at 7 p.m. I called Lincoln to tell him there was a good chance that I wouldn't make the meeting and would be home earlier than expected because traffic getting to the Mass Pike was really bad. With all the flooding lately there are a number of closed roads and reduced lanes. Just as I was finally getting through the stop light, while I was still talking to Lincoln, my ABS (the brake light) came on. That concerned me since the battery light was still on as well. Then the "service" light came on showing a picture of a little wrench before the "check engine soon" light came on. Of course I'm narrating all of this for Lincoln since I was still on the phone with him and I told him I was going to pull into the parking lot of the ice rink up ahead. Before I got to the parking lot my dashboard lights went out and my radio turned off. As I finally turned into the parking lot I realized that my power steering was gone and my windshield wipers were moving very slowly. I managed to pull into a parking spot before the car died completely.

The good news is that I was only about a mile or two from where Cyril told me his brother had his garage so I told Lincoln I was going to call Cyril, have my car towed to his brother's shop, and then Lincoln would have to drive into the city with the kids to pick me up. I called Cyril for the name and address of his brother's shop and it turns out that he and his wife live right around the corner from where my car died. He said they'd be right now and that I could borrow his wife Cristin's car. I couldn't believe it. What a generous offer!

The two of them came down and Cyril took a look at my car. He managed to get it started again and we thought about attempting to drive it to the shop down the street instead of having it towed but we could barely drive it more than 30 seconds in the parking lot before it started shutting down again so I called AAA.

This whole situation amazes me. Cyril is the general contractor on the office project and while he and I have certainly become friends over the past few weeks (and he's my new little brother since Kegan is gone) he and his wife certainly didn't have to do this for me. I couldn't believe it. I really like this kid. He's a keeper.

Lincoln's accident

Yesterday I did not post any of the details of Lincoln's accident because at the time I didn't have any. I wasn't exactly sure what had happened and I hadn't seen the damage to the truck yet.

Where we live you have to go around a clover leaf entrance ramp in order to get on the highway going northbound. Lincoln was the last of four cars headed up the entrance ramp and was checking to his left to judge the traffic in the right lane with which he would be merging. The lane was empty except for one truck a ways back that he would have to deal with as he merged. The cars in front of him should have been fine for merging into the right lane except for some completely unknown reason the first car in the line came to a stop instead of merging into traffic. Why the hell do people do that??? You never, never, NEVER stop when merging onto an interstate because you need speed in order to do that safely and not cause everyone in the right lane to have to slam on their brakes once you do decide to merge. And you sure as hell don't have any reason to do it WHEN THE LANE YOU'RE MERGING INTO IS EMPTY!!!!!

Anyway, the idiot in the first car stopped at the top of the entrance ramp. The other cars in the line, probably doing the same as Lincoln and looking at the right lane over their left shoulder so that they could merge with oncoming traffic, all stopped suddenly as well when they noticed that the idiot who never have been given a drivers license in the first place had stopped FOR NO APPARENT REASON. Unfortunately Lincoln, being the last car, was just coming around the final bend in the cloverleaf and the three cars lined up and STOPPED FOR NO REASON would have been right there. He tried to swerve to miss the car that was stopped in front of him and unfortunately clipped her pretty good with his right front bumper pushing her into the car in front of her.

Car #1 - the jackass - took off and kept driving after setting in motion this series of events. His car was never touched. May bad karma bite him in the ass and cause him horrible inconvenience of either a physical or financial sort in the near future. And may his license be stripped from him forever for being an idiot who should never have been on the road in the first place.

Car #2 - A Caddy. Made of good old Detroit steel and barely had a mark on it despite Lincoln's impact with car # 3 causing car # 3 to hit the Caddy.

Car # 3 - A Mazda. Not sure how much damage was done to the Mazda but Lincoln said it was fairly substantial. There was the back end damage caused by Lincoln's large pick-up and then he said that her car sustained far more front end damage from hitting the Caddy than rear end damage caused to the Caddy.

Car # 4 - Lincoln's Toyota Tundra. The front bumper was pushed in and twisted to such a degree that it popped his front right tire and had the bumper up under the wheel well. Lincoln had the truck towed to a local shop and they were able to pull out his bumper, put on his spare tire, and replace his broken light bulbs in order to make the car drivable. The good news is that Lincoln's truck is already fairly battered so it doesn't look that bad. It's not like he'll be driving around with half of his truck missing.

The real question is going to be how much damage was done to the Mazda and what this is going to do to our insurance. All of that remains to be seen.

I really thought this post would be about me

Lincoln got into a car accident this morning. It wasn't anything terribly serious and luckily no one was hurt but it did some considerable damage to his truck and the other car. Given that I'm the "reckless" driver and he's the "safe" driver in this family I really thought that when this eventual post about a car accident involving one of our cars took place it would be my fault. It's good to know that sometimes I'm the perfect one.

Good clean fun

Yesterday morning we packed up the kids and headed down to the "Do It Yourself" car wash. We cleaned out every nook and cranny of the car and then gave it a good scrub down so that we can start off our trip to Iowa on the right foot. I'm sure by the time we get there it will be a huge mess again but at least we're starting off with a clean car.

Embracing the quirkiness

Lately I've been very disturbed by all the things that are wrong with my 2003 Saturn. I spend a lot of time in my car (as evidenced by the 131,000 miles I've put on in 6 years) so I've been fighting all the little issues that I've been having with my car. Today I finally decided to give up and embrace the quirkiness of my car. And isn't that sometimes the thing that makes you cool? For example, in the movies isn't it always the bad boy/outsider girl/loner/rebel that drives some old beater or has the high school locker that requires you to hit it in certain spots to open it? Well that's my car. So from now on I'm going to embrace the fact that only I know where, and how often, you have to hit the dashboard in order for the CD player to accept the CD. And that only I know to expect that in 90 degree weather or higher (which we're obviously not having this summer) the passenger side door will stick on the bottom and slam back and hit you in the face if you're trying to get out. Or exactly where to hit the plastic panel in the tailgate to silence the loose screw that is rolling around and can't be retrieved.

So there you have it. You can now consider me one of the cool kids.

Ellen (subtitled: a very sad day)

I usually get my car fixed at the Saturn dealership. I know people say you shouldn't do that but they're actually good and they're very reasonable. Never once have they charged me more than the original quote. The lady in the service department, Ellen, is fantastic and she's the only one that I'll deal with there. The other person working in that department is a major tool, jerk, idiot, rude pain in my ass. Can you tell how I feel about him? Normally when I have to deal with him I call Lincoln immediately afterwards and tell him I'm selling my car. I finally gave up and just refused to deal with anyone but Ellen even if it means waiting.

This July we're getting ready to drive back to Iowa and Minnesota so I need to get a few things repaired on my car before we go. Most of them are small little things but I just want everything done before we drive all those miles. I finally called Saturn today to make an appointment and found out that Ellen LEFT!!!! What am I going to do? The receptionist offered to put me through to the other guy and I said "no thanks, I may just have to find somewhere else to take my car." Eventually I decided to talk to Ivan. He's the person hired to replace Ellen. He seemed pretty good after my brief conversation with him so hopefully he'll end up being my new Ellen and I can continue to avoid the other idiot. If not I'm definitely looking for a new mechanic.

Meineke sucks

I just went to pick up my car from Meineke. The first words out of the guy's mouth when I walked in were "They're still pulsating." He then said that if I wanted they could take the front rotors back off.

Me: Did I need new rotors?

Him: You told us you did. We did what you told us to do.

Me: But did I need them or did you just put them on for no reason?

Him: You told us you needed them.

Lincoln and I then insisted that I take it for a test drive before paying.

The car was FINE. The problem that I was having was gone. Before when I was braking my entire car would shake. It was really bad. Now it's fine. So then I went back in to tell him that.

Me: The car is fine.

Him: Really?

Me: Yes. And if it gets worse I'll take it to a professional next time.

And to top it ALL off, they ran my tank of gas down to empty. I had just shy of a 1/4 of a tank of gas when I dropped it off and when I got back it was in the orange area and the gas light was on. What a bunch of jackasses.

Why do mechanics always try to screw you over?

I know that people always tell you to never take your car to the dealership to be worked on but I have to say, I love dealing with Saturn provided I get to deal with Ellen. She works at the Saturn of Norwood and she is fantastic. The other guys there can be real jerks but she is great. I actually have it in my service record that she is the only one that can call me about my car. Whenever I go to Saturn she calls me with a quote and they either come in exactly at the estimate or under....usually under. Only twice have I ever taken my car somewhere else. The first time it was a local mechanic here in Upton who raised the estimate three times, charged me twice what Saturn does for the same work, and managed to deprogram my sunroof while he was working on my wheel bearings. Obviously I'm never going back there.

This week I need to get new brakes. We're leaving for Niagara Falls tomorrow and we definitely didn't want to head out before getting them fixed. As much as I love Saturn it is not very conveniently located and I wasn't able to get in for them to fix my brakes before we left so I had to head down to Meineke today. Before I did I called and talked to Ellen. After looking at my service record she said "Do NOT let them sell you new back brakes. You don't need them fixed." The problems with my brakes have been that they've been pulsating in the front whenever I brake. Meineke just called me and said that they think they're pulsating in the back and I need new back ones. I told them "no thanks, just the front ones will be fine" and then he told me that yes, I do need new rotors on the front ones. I know that if I hadn't talked to Ellen I'm sure I would have bought new rear brakes as well. Why do they always try to screw you over? I am going to make sure that both Hannah and Jake take auto shop in high school so that they at least know the very basics of car maintenance.

Not a good day for a wine clearance sale

My car is currently in the shop having it's 7th, yes SEVENTH, wheel bearing replaced in the past 5 1/2 years. It's going to cost me about $450 on top of the $600 in new tires I just bought a few weeks ago. So getting to work and finding an email for a wine clearance sale from my favorite winery is not a good sign. I might buy out their entire stock.