Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Car woes

So, I think I blogged about our BRAND NEW CAR!! Ok, so it's 9 years old and it's a Ford Taurus. But it's only got 55K miles on it and so it's nearly new, plus we paid cash for it, so no car payments...yahoo! We are thrilled with it and are now deciding which of our other cars to get rid of so we're back in the garage again. (Divine hubby is quite the "we manage our stuff so that we can park our cars in the garage" snob...)

The Saab is in the shop, probably forever. It has this quirky little thing about not starting sometimes. And it just won't start until it feels like it. It doesn't happen all of the time, but when it does, we are stranded until the car feels like working again. It's a pain, I'll tell ya. But, because it doesn't happen all of the time, no one has been able to figure out why it does this lovely behavior. So, now that we have the NEW car, we have left the Saab with our favorite Saab mechanic and said, "Please drive it until it won't start for you and then FIX IT!" So, he's had it a week. And although the last day I drove it (last Monday) it did its little thing THREE times in one day, it of course has not misbehaved at all for my beloved mechanic. Behaving like a champ. sigh But, the up-side is, that we have three cars now, so our plan was to leave it with the Saab guy until it happens.

That was the plan.

Until yesterday.

When Divine Hubby couldn't get the BRAND NEW car to start either.

sigh

So, now the plan is. DH comes home from work (30 minutes). We drive together to the Saab place (40 minutes). We pick up Saab. Drive home (40 minutes). The next day, DH and Chase and I drive to the Ford place (20 minutes) to drop off the Ford for repairs. Then I take DH to work (30 minutes). Then drive back to take Chase to school (30 minutes). Then possibly to work for me. All while praying the Saab doesn't decide to misbehave during any of that time.

It's exhausting just thinking about it! Thankfully, when one buys a 9-yr-old car (even with only 55K miles on it), one plans ahead and buys the extended warranty. So, we at least don't have to pay for this repair. And hopefully it will only take 1 day, in which time we will completely do all of the above AGAIN to give the Saab back to the mechanic so he can drive it some more.

I sure wish NASA or TSA or somebody would hurry up and develop that cool Star Trek beaming thing. Can you imagine how great that would be? I can't wait.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oooh, I hate when things work like that. I managed to get hit by an unmanned car (rolling out of a business driveway) exactly 1 week after my husband had put our extra car in the shop to be painted. We were carpooling for more than 4 weeks. (Did I mention that somehow the rental policy and uninsured motorist coverage had been canceled on my car insurance and the owner of said car was uninsured so I had to claim it on collision?) Luckily he passed my office on his way to work at the time. We got them both back within a week of each other.

Anyway, hope your car woes are short lived.

Anonymous said...

Susie, that is terrible! I can't believe your new car is behaving so Saab-like. Best wishes for reliability again very soon.

Shelly... said...

I hate cars, but they are a necessary evil for sure!