Tuesday afternoon, May 2nd, I took my car to the Texaco QuickLube to get the oil changed. Afterwards I drove across the street to the Chevron to fill the tank. $21 later I got back into my car and noticed that the Gas Meter and Temperature guages on my dash panel were no longer working. I shrugged, figured a fuse blew, and since the car was running fine, vowed to go get some fuses and fix the problem, later.
Wednesday evening I got home from work and ran inside to grab my mitt and change for softball practice. When I ran back out, my car wouldn’t start. Miffed though not panicked, I called friends and got a ride, still figuring that the problem was a minor electrical glitch. Thursday morning Theo came over to give me a jump. When he arrived I tried to start the car without assistance, and it started fine. I drove it down to German Engine Service, explained the problem, left my key, and crossed my fingers.
Initially the mechanic told me that it was probably the alternator, which sounded like a simple fix if not an entirely inexpensive one. Today I found out that it’s actually a circuit board that shorted out. I was given a Wednesday estimate with a $270 price tag. I can live with that. Then he called back. The part is obsolete (not for me!), so he’ll have to call the junk yards, which he won’t have time to do until Monday. Who knows if anyone has the part. My car is one of the more obscure cars you’ll ever see, whether or not you’d know it by looking at it. It’s a 1993 VW Fox 2-Door Sedan 5-Speed Wolfsburg Edition, and a lovely dark blue color too. I’ve been to hell (okay, so it was just Ohio) and back with that car, and I love it dearly, and I don’t want it to be dead.
That said, the idea of living without a car has always been vaguely appealing to me, and for at least the next week, I’ll be forced to give it a shot. When my car died in Ohio, I bothered everyone more than I would have liked by borrowing their cars (at the time I neither had a bicycle nor worked very close to home). This time, I have a bicycle that I like (I even have padded bike shorts), and I live a reasonable distance that it would be no great ordeal to bike in to work. Tomorrow I’ll give it a shot.
For the long term, Montreal seems like an easy enough city to live in without driving, so regardless of whether or not I drive to get out there, I think I’ll do my best to drive very little once I arrive. Perhaps my auto(mobile)-dependance is being forced out of me, but I’m determined to make the best of it. All the same, please send happy thoughts to my poor Fox, who has only turned 13-years-old this year and who was planning on going another 80,000 miles (at least) before it goes to that big scrap pile in the sky.
My car is dead. Long live my car!