The other day, Sara told me that her heat wasn’t working on her car. “Better get that looked at before winter,” I said. A couple of days later I drove her car to the grocery store and I noticed that the temperature gage was showing the engine getting pretty hot. Usually Sara drives the car for very short distances only, around the neighborhood, but I was on the highway here. So the first thing I did when I saw it getting hot was to turn on the heat, full blast. Of course, the heat didn’t work, so it was only blowing out cool air and not cooling down the engine. However, when it would get really hot, the heat would suddenly kick on and the engine would cool.

Now this was a bigger problem than just the heat, but the two things were obviously connected. My guess was maybe a thermostat problem or something. So I made an appointment to take it in. My mechanic is out by my work so that I can drop the car off in the morning, work all day, and then pick it up at night. This seems to be the least disruptive way to handle car problems. However, that means driving the car out 45 minutes on the highway to get there. You can probably see where this is going. The heat would not kick on and, despite keeping my eye glued to the thermostat and driving as slow as I could without being rear-ended, the car overheated and I had to pull over on the side of the highway. It took half an hour for the tow truck to get there.

It turns out that there was a crack inside the intake manifold which allowed all of the coolant to leak out (hence the overheating and no heat). This might not have been so bad, except that the leak was directly over the engine, so all of the coolant that was leaking out was being sucked into a lot of really bad places. They said it would be $900 to fix the damage they knew about, but there was a high likelihood that there would be more problems with the engine. Later, when I learned that at least one cylinder completely filled up with anti-freeze and had to be drained, I suspected that there was a high, high, high likelihood that at least some of the engine would need to be replaced.

Thus began the great debate: do I fix the car or get rid of it? The car was 15 years old and a few minor things had started to go wrong with it all at once recently, which I took as a sign. According to what I found online, it was worth between $1,000 and $1,500. If the repairs were $900+ (and maybe a big plus if the engine had to go), so it just didn’t seem like it was worth fixing. On the other hand, until the day the intake manifold cracked, it was a perfectly good car that seemed like it had some good years in it yet. Eventually we decided that it wasn’t worth keeping the car. Sara had bought it used for like $3,000 and we had it for 8 years. That seemed like a pretty good go.

I thought that making that decision meant the hard part was over, but it was just the beginning. The next question was, if we’re not going to keep it, what were we going to do with it? I didn’t want to pay to fix it and then try to sell it, because that’s a gamble: if we didn’t sell it for what we put into it, then we lost money. So instead I decided to not fix it, and try to sell it anyway. I thought if I explained the problem and set the price really low, maybe someone who could do the work themselves or get the parts for cheap might want it. I figured that the car was worth between $1k and $1.5k, so split the difference and call it $1,250. The repairs were around $900, plus a little more, so I figured the magic number was around $300 or so.

But how to get it home? It was way out in the suburbs. I got some towing estimates, and it was around $150. Our insurance would cover the original tow into the shop, but not the “convenience tow” (their words, not mine). It seemed kind of silly to pay $150 for a tow if I was only going to sell the car for $300, but I didn’t know what choice I had. Finally I called the place and said, “If I stuff it full of coolant, could I make it back to the city?” “Maybe,” he said, “Probably.” Very well, decision made. Until, that is, he called me back a little later. “I changed my mind. The leak is a lot worse than we thought. I don’t think you could make it.” This is where I learned that the coolant had filled up the cylinders. After they drained that, they put some water in to see how bad it was leaking and the water flowed right through.

Well, I still didn’t want to pay to have it towed, and they were getting antsy about keeping it on their lot any longer, so I still didn’t have a choice. I showed up bright and early the next morning, 2 jugs of anti-freeze in my hand. I figured I wouldn’t make it home, but every mile I drove was less money I’d have to pay for the inevitable tow.

“Oh, you can’t drive it, it doesn’t start.”
“Wait, what now? You said you didn’t think I could make it home, but you didn’t say it didn’t start!”
“Oh, well I thought they had got is started, but I guess they didn’t. The water we put in yesterday ran into the cylinders and hydro-statically locked them. You can’t even turn it on.”
::blank stare from me, standing there stupidly with my anti-freeze::
“Well, I guess I won’t be picking it up today…”

Ugh.

At this point, I was running out of options, so I started calling scrap yards. I found a place that would tow the car for me and give me $310 for it (above my magical $300 line). So, not only could I get about what I wanted from it, but I wouldn’t have the extra expense of towing it home, and I wouldn’t have the hassle of trying to sell it. I still debated for another day or so, after all it seemed such a shame for a car to go from perfectly fine to junked in a matter of days, but eventually I just didn’t have any other viable choice.

All of the trouble, time and effort this had cost me so far wasn’t quite over with yet, there was one more hurrah left! I needed to be at the car with the keys and title, so they could tow it away. They wanted to do it on Friday, which wasn’t super convenient for me, but I arranged to be there between 1 and 2. I would just try to bring enough stuff to keep Oliver and Evie occupied until the truck showed up.

He called at 11 and said, “Okay, I’m ready to do this.”
“Well, I’m not. I’m in the city. I have to pick up my daughter from school at 12. That’s why I scheduled it for between 1 and 2.”
“Hey, no problem,” he said in an understanding voice, “these things come up during the day. Just try to get here as soon as possible.”

Well, no, my day was all planned out. YOU were the thing that was unexpectedly cropping up! But it was nice of him for being so understanding (that was sarcasm). Nonetheless, I picked up Evie from school and we managed to make it out there by 12:30, and I gave him a call.

“Well, I’m picking up someone else right now. Let me call you when I’m coming out so that you can wait at home until then.”
“I’m already here, at the car. I came as early as I could.”
“I can be there in an hour.”

Okay, no big deal, that would put him there at 1:30, which was solidly between my 1 and 2 appointment. We brought food and stuff to do, we could occupy ourselves for an hour.

After 2 I gave him a call. I was a little steamed by this point.
“Well, sir, I just have one more pickup to do first…”
“That’s what you said last time, and that was an hour and a half ago!”
“I’m very sorry, but we’re very busy today.”
“So am I, that’s why I scheduled an appointment!”
“Towing is very unpredictable. We don’t know how long these things are going to take. That’s why I told you to wait at home until I called.”
“Then why are you picking up another car? I’ve been waiting for an hour and a half. How long has he been waiting?”
“Well, he’s very close to base, so my dispatcher told me to pick him up first.”
“Next time tell him too bad! Tell him I’ve been waiting with an infant and a toddler in an alley next to a dumpster for an hour and a half, and you have to do me next!”
“Well, I have no control over it. You’re welcome to call and complain. If you can’t wait then call back and schedule another pickup at your convenience.”
“Today between 1 and 2 WAS my convenience. THAT’S WHY I SCHEDULED AN APPOINTMENT!”

The tow truck finally arrived at 3:20, an hour and 20 minutes after the end of my appointment and almost 3 hours after I arrived. We had walked around the neighborhood, had a dance contest on a nearby stump, eaten a bagel at Dunkin Donuts, re-read the same book several times, given Oliver a bottle, played any number of games I could make up, and Oliver had even had a nap. Things were looking desperate.

Finally, Evie had said her goodbyes, the check was in my hand, and the car was gone. What a day!

So.

Thus ends the saga of the old car, and begins the new saga: finding a new car!

Originally I had figured that when Sara’s car died we would buy a van. However, we thought about it a little bit and decided we didn’t really need a van, at least not yet. There are only two times a year or so when we are hurting for space, and we’ve always managed to make do thus far. So what we decided to get instead was a very small car with great fuel economy for me to take back and forth to work. With the money we save on gas, we can rent a van twice a year.

We’re currently cross-referencing the consumer report’s reliability list with the fuel economy list and price guidelines, and making a spreadsheet. While we’re doing all the research, however, we have to figure out how to manage our hectic weekly schedule with only one car. Sara has been busy learning the bus route, and it’s actually working okay so far.

In fact, it’s working out so well that it’s got us thinking: do we even need a second car? Of course, it’s not going to be easy, but it is going to be a lot cheaper. If we could make some of the difficult things work, it could be worth it. The one hitch in our plan was that Sara had to go one day a week to another hospital, so we would need two cars for sure on that day. However, it looks like she coincidentally might not need to do that anymore. Is the universe trying to tell us something?

So, for now, the plan is to give it a go with only one car until Thanksgiving, as a trial run. Can we do it? I’m sure I will keep you posted.