rena_librarian | long car story, for posterity (Reply)

Because someday, someone will care. XD Woot for happy endings at least.

Monday before last, as Cody and I were driving on our way to have a celebratory dinner after doing our legalities (lol), my car started jerking. I pulled into a parking lot just to get off the street--luckily it was O'Reilly Auto Parts. As my car shuddered and died, I realized my (digital) dashboard had died, no indicators of anything. Parked, tried to start up again, click click click. No dice. We went inside and got a guy to come check the car, he said it was probably the alternator or the battery (as I suspected), he tested the battery and said it had like no charge, but it could still be either--the alternator dying would kill the battery. He gave us a jump and we drove the block or so to Wayne's Auto Repair, where my cousin works. (Take your cars there, folks. Srsly.) It was closing time there, but we left the keys and got a ride back to the house (thanks April!! =D), where we took Cody's car to go have dinner.

I drive Cody's car to work Wednesday since he's off anyway, call at the end of the workday and Laurien is ready, so we decided to go pick her up first thing in the morning. We do, and Rodney (my cousin) warns me that I MIGHT need a new battery, but the car gets home fine so I don't think anything of it. We drop off my car and then drive Cody's down to Cave City to spend the day with his family.

On the way back from Cave City, around 10:30 at night, we have a blowout. I pull in the first driveway I find, we get out and survey the damage--driver's front tire is completely unsalvageable. Sigh. Sucky, but not the end of the world--Cody has a donut and a jack and I know how to put it on. We go knock on the front door of the people's house and tell the guy that answers that we're changing a tire in his yard, please don't shoot, etc.

I end up doing the majority of the work myself as Cody is having to hold back the guy's dogs so I don't panic. Halfway through the process the jack slips and I have to start all over, and at this point Cody gets the brilliant idea to put on the emergency brake, which we should have done in the first place. Sigh.

Finally around like 11:30 (we're not watching the clock too closely, just want to get HOME) we get going again. As we get back on the highway we realize we're only something like 10-15 minutes out of town and are happy about that. The car is kinda wanting to drift toward the passenger side, but I blame that on the donut. We also blame the donut for the odd light on the dash.

We're almost back in town before I realize that we forgot to release the emergency brake, and that's probably what that light is. We were both so upset and in a hurry to get home that it didn't occur to either one of us. D'oh! Well of course I let it off and we continue. It isn't until a wee bit later that I go to brake, and push the pedal all the way to the floor and get NO RESPONSE. For half a second I try to plot a route by which we can get home without needing to brake too much, and Cody is freaking, and then I remember that between where we are and home, there's a huge hill we'd have to coast down. You generally have to ride your brake to stay under the speed limit, unchecked I imagine you could hit 80 or 90 by the time you got there. (For the Mountain Homies in the audience, the big hill on 62, down from Wal*Mart to Cardinal Street.) We're kind of at the top of this hill and I make the executive decision to pull into the easiest parking lot possible and stop us with the emergency brake.

We pull, brakes SCREAMING, into the Highway Department lot. We go over our options, decide there's no one we want to wake, and collect our crap for the walk home, which I'm estimating is about 2 miles. At least it's mostly downhill. =P I go to grab my keys and they won't come out. We leave a note under the wipers for the Highway Department, and I call the Sherriff's Department (thank goodness I have the number, due to one of the women from Lions working there) to report that we have to leave the car there with the keys in it. We start walking. We don't get far before Bryan (Cody's stepdad) calls us (we've been calling them with updates starting with when we had trouble getting the donut out) and says that maybe the key is stuck because we forgot to put the car in park. D'oh! again. We dash back, and just as we're getting to it, a lady cop in a Sherriff's Department car pulls up. I hop in, and sure enough the car isn't in park. I shift it and get my keys back, yay. We explain to the cop what happened and she asks where we live. I tell her and she offers to drive us home (which most of you probably saw on Facebook, lol). She tells us it's good we're in city limits or we would have had to walk.

Interesting fact: the back of a cop car is not upholstered. It's hard plastic, like a carnival ride. Someone, I think it was Josh, pointed out that it's possible to rip out a spring and use it as a weapon, so that's probably why.

Also, our cops, while generally being decent people, DRIVE LIKE MANIACS. This woman never actually stopped once (the one time we hit a red light, she was turning right), and was going 40-50 on COLEY DRIVE. WTF???

In any case, Cody and I are relieved to get home. I tell the neighbors who are giving us odd looks as the cop lets us out of the car (who are themselves congregating outside at 1:30 AM, which is frowned upon by management) that the car broke down. We wash our hands with dish soap to remove tire dirt and fall into bed.

Cody is supposed to be at work at six. The next morning, we get in my car to drive him...and my car won't start. The battery is dead. The electric locks won't even work. Cody walks to work, I go inside and can't go back to sleep so I start calling my dad. I call like fifty million times and he doesn't answer. He finally sees the voicemail I left, and calls me, and tells me his phone never rang. (This is why my parents should MOVE INTO TOWN. Gah.) Anyway he soothes me and tells me it will all be okay, and to get Wayne's to tow the car so that we won't have to pay for it until it's all fixed. I call to arrange it, but they need a key to tow it--unless we want the window broken. Sigh.

I call the office and ask if there's anyone free to drive me to and from my client, and this happens, thankfully. When I get home I'm thinking my car just needs a good jump and then a loop around the bypass to charge the battery, so I wait until it's almost time for Cody to get off work. At 2:45 my neighbor tries to jump me, and her car dies. (She says her battery is going, this isn't a big deal, her bf will jump her later.) She gets her friend across the complex to try and it doesn't work. Battery is totally dead, won't take a charge. Sigh.

So now I need to take out my battery, get to Wal*Mart to get a new one, and get the key to Rodney. With no car between the two of us. Grr. Cody calls and is off work, I tell him to wait, I'll try to find us a ride, but he insists on walking. I call April and she agrees to run us around as she was going to be running errands anyway. Awesome! Seriously, IDK what we would have done otherwise--my parents were out of town and J was busy and I just have no idea who else would have been free and willing.

She picks up Cody along the way and pulls in just as I'm getting the battery out of my car. Cody pops inside to freshen up and change, and then we run around--Cody has to deposit his check, April has her errands, but we finally get to Wal*Mart. My battery is about one month over being under warranty. >_< Still, we get a new battery and April drops us back home. I get the battery put in, and we run the key to Rodney with about 10 minutes before closing time. I don't turn off the car and Cody and I make a loop around the bypass and 62. As we drive by, we see his car being loaded on to the tow truck.

This is Friday, so we're down to one car for the weekend. I drive Cody to work Saturday and Sunday, and we go out to Rock Haven reunion on Sunday. Ahhhhh it was nice to catch up with friends! Cody is off Monday and so I go to work and come home, and I forget to call Rodney to see what's going on (he's notorious for not calling about the cars, lol). The next day I go to lunch and stuff with Mom and Madison, who Mom and Dad picked up on their way back--she's staying down here for a few weeks during summer vacation. =) Mom asks about the car and I'm all "Oh yeah!" so I call Rodney.

The car is FINE. Totally fine. He said that what likely happened is that the brake fluid overheated and ceased to work, but there's no damage to the car and the brakes work just fine.

They didn't even charge us for the tow. I damn near cried, and when we went to pick the car up, Cody told Wayne that he could hug him, lol. Wayne told him to hug me instead. XD

Do you have ANY idea what a relief it is to have a HUGE CAR BILL hanging over your head and be all you can think about it, and then have it be totally free? OMG. It was wonderful.

We still, of course, had to go get a new tire for Cody's car, but after all that, $45 for a tire seemed so insignificant.

Cody's all paranoid about the car now, but I keep telling him that there's no way a mechanic would let us leave the shop for free if there was something wrong with the car. If there was anything wrong with the car at all, they'd take that moneymaking opportunity, lol.

So if you have car trouble in or around Mountain Home, take your car to Wayne's Auto Repair (it's between AutoZone and the Exxon station where 5, 201, and 62 merge). They will do you right. (I feel like I should be handing out business cards for them. If he's going to comp us a tow I want to drum up some business for him!)

~*~

On a side note, the whole moving-in thing is working really well. Our car insurance together is considerably cheaper than either of us was paying alone. And groceries are easier. We're actually having money left over. I'd forgotten what that felt like.