Aug 05 2011
Driving Me Crazy
Well, the oil change was $50. When I told Jonathan and Rob about it, they were horrified, mixed with surprise. My thought was that they had enough to do working on the brakes and not much time – my brother works 52 hours a week – and Rob is still recovering from people rummaging around in his spine. Jonathan suggested that next time, he’ll do the oil change and I can put $40 towards the property’s mortgage.
It turned out that the brakes are A-OK and not the cause of the roughness/wiggle (which my brother describes as a “front end shimmy” – sounds to me like a dance from the 1920s). It will require professional diagnostics, which are free at the tire store*. Hopefully once we know what the problem is, my brother can fix it.
Also, when he was test driving the car after putting it back together – he always does this when he works on his sisters’ cars – it dropped out of gear. It went back in after he revved it a bit, but now I have to take it to the one transmission place in town and get it looked at on Monday morning. And they will have to fix whatever is wrong with it. Here’s hoping it’s not too expensive.
I guess it’s not all that surprising, considering the car is 14 years old and gets routinely driven on rough, potholed roads, but I can’t help but feel that cars are just holes you pour money into. I hate spending money on things that aren’t fun. Or at least sparkly.
*Amazingly, two of the car’s tires are 8 years old! I’ll probably have to replace them before the winter rains set in.