What a totally disgusting, awful day.
It’s been many moons since I’ve experienced one so bad. You don’t need to know all the gory details preceding the main event, but imagine your hysterical spouse in a dead ‘89 Dodge blocking the road while you’re trying to get the AAA operator in darkest Texas to grasp the concept of a tilde (~), necessary for the correct spelling of where the hell you are (Cañon Road & Don Nicolas Drive), which she supposedly needs to know so she can enter it into the computer and access the info for a local towing company. I kept telling her there was only one that mattered, but she wouldn’t have any of that. Yes, the one AAA eventually called for me was that same and only one. I even gave the operator the name beforehand, but she wouldn’t listen to me. (The people at this level of service make plurals with apostrophes, you know. It’s very sad. I should have been more kind, I suppose: asking most computer users to come up with a tilde-over-the-”n” is pretty cruel, even if they know what you’re talking about.)
And then my cell phone battery died…
After using my wife’s phone to call again and declaring to the second operator that the first one should be taken out and shot, I happened to remember that what I call Cañon Road is actually U.S. 64, which smoothed things out a bit. This operator actually put me through to the towing company, who said they’d be there in an hour and a half and then tow the car to a designated garage. I left the keys on the floor and drove us back home in the truck.
It’s been over eight hours since we left the car. Four hours ago we had a phone call from the woman my wife had been visiting, and she said the Dodge was still there. Maybe it’s resting quietly in the mud as I type this, who knows, or maybe it’s on fire. At least it isn’t a Porsche. If all the windows are busted out in the morning, we’re only out the alleged trade-in value of about $300, so things could be worse.
We’re thinking now of calling the garage on Monday morning — assuming the Dodge was eventually towed — and telling them NOT to fix it, because whatever’s wrong (fuel pump?) will cost more than the car is worth. That’s a given. So maybe it’s time for a “new” car. Well, what the hell, it’s only dollars. That’s like paying with feathers or candy bar wrappers.
I’m thinking of a year-old Pontiac Vibe, 36+ mpg. The only thing is, my wife wants an automatic transmission [sob]. “But honey, you can get even better mileage with the stick shift!” She doesn’t get it. GEAR RATIOS, baby! You want to fly up La Veta Pass? Put ‘er in 3rd and keep the revs up, simple. But with an automatic? Sheesh!
Unnhhhhh-grunt-unnhhhh-DOWNSHIFT! REEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRR
upshift-unnnhhhh-grunt-unnhhh -DOWNSHIFT! REEEEEEEEERRR, etc.
What is it with some people that they can’t grasp these things? The Vibe has a Corolla engine. Hook that up to an automatic, and it’s like throwing out an anchor. That would hardly be any better than the Dodge, which uses an engine the Russians rejected for garden tractors (when you give it the gas, it goes slower). Know what, though? She does most of the driving in town, running errands and such, and traffic usually just creeps along. Hmm.
This will be probably be her car, if I have any sense, so I have to bend.
Bleah.
(God, do I miss my Nissan 240SX-SE…)
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey, John,
That car with an automatic isn’t to bad. Thank heaven it’s a Toyota more than Pontiac!
Ours got very good milage and boy could you haul a lot of stuff in that car.
Milage around town as 30-32, trips to northeast Ohio ,where I was staying at the time, we would get 36-38 mpg. Great car. No, I didn’t drive the speed limit!
Those are only suggestions anyway aren’t they?
We’re going to get another one when the stupid lease is up on the Saturn Vue.
My last GM car ever!
Frank
That car isn’t even CLOSE to dead by Taos standards!
When I first got to town, an errant rock was thrown through one of my orange turn signals. I went to the local garage to get it repaired, telling the proprietor I was concerned about not getting an inspection sticker. He laughed at my New Mexican inexperience and stuck a piece of orange tape over the hole.
I say you get a used fuel pump at one of the many junkyards, duct-tape it to the engine block, cut off the trunk-lid and install a chile-roasting barrel! You can be the town’s FIRST mobile roaster!
With all the Mad Max-style vehicles on the road, that Dodge of yours looks like it just came off the showroom floor.
Peace Out!
I appreciate both comments very much, more or less exactly what I anticipated. And you’re both right!
The thing is, however, that at least one of our vehicles has to be good for road trips. I’ve driven the truck on 2,000-mile jaunts, but 15 mpg doesn’t cut it any more. And my sweetie deserves a car that isn’t liable to leave her stranded. As of this morning, BTW, she says she isn’t wedded to the idea of an automatic, but it WILL be “her car.”
I also saw a negative report about the clutches used in those models, so I’m not so sure myself any more. My brother, who used to be stationed on Okinawa, knows a lot about Japanese auto technology and says just the opposite, that the clutches uses in Japanese cars are generally built pretty well due to their owners having to sit in heavy traffic so much. At this point it’s likely to come down to what’s available, and the stick shift models are relatively rare.
I’m 95% sure we’ll pull the plug on the Dodge, though. It’s time.