(Note: this post reuploaded after I nuked my site)
So, unfortunately, I will call add a “Volume 1″ to this post. These won’t necessarily be in cronological order, just as I think of them. If anyone reads this and has a story of their own they want to add, just shoot me an email. Let’s do this.
About a month ago or so, we decided that we should start saving for a new-used car for the Mrs. The savings hadn’t amounted to much so far — not even a decent down payment yet — but it was still money in the bank. We’ve been saving some cash each payday in a little emergency fund type of account for car repairs as well. But, well, let me just
keep on telling my little story.
Not mine, but close enough
We bought my car used in 2003. An 01 model Mitsubishi Galant that was a used rental. It didn’t really bother me that it used to be a rental when we bought it, but that little nugget was always a little burr in my side. We’ve had no problems with it really at all until just about a month ago.
I would get the minor routine maintenance stuff done: oil changes, rotate & balance the tires, that kind of stuff. But those pages in the back of the owner’s manual that give suggested maintenance items and intervals — well, I ignored those mostly.
The Mrs. had to work late, so I was tasked with picking up the boy child from Mother’s Day Out and had a couple of other errands to run while I was out. He was excited to actually ride in “daddy’s car” since his car seat is usually in “mommy’s car”. We had strapped the extra seat he was nominally too big for into my car and we were on our way.
Everything was going fine until I got off the highway to go into our neighborhood. I was stopped at a red light before going over an overpass. I get to the top of the overpass going slowly and then I lost all power. (To top it all off, I was actually talking on my cell phone at the time — one of my pet peeves.) Traffic was starting to get heavy at the time and of course there was someone on my tail. I get to the bottom of the overpass and stop — permanently — at the red light. I try to re-crank the motor and it sounds like a dead battery.
I ended up calling the Mrs. to have her come get me (so much for her working late) and we hook up the jumper cables. Keep in mind I’ve got a toddler that’s getting more and more restless and hot in the backseat. We can’t get the battery to jump, so the Mrs. heads on home with the boy and and I call a tow truck.
The mechanic says he’ll take a look at it the next day and give me a call with a diagnosis. He was thrilled with it I’m sure. A broken
timing belt. And apparently I have an interference motor. According to Wikipedia
“In an interference engine, or one whose valves extend into the path of the piston, failure of the timing belt (or timing chain) invariably results in costly and, in some cases, irreparable engine damage, as some valves will be held open when they should not be and thus will be struck by the pistons.”
My interference motor just interfered with itself. And on top of that the broken belt slapped around and took out a couple more things while it was at it. So, where does that put me? Well, to see if the engine is any good, they have to first replace the timing belt and a couple of things that the broken one took out. ~$750 just to see if my engine is junk. Great. Let’s give it a shot. Luckily, it turns out I was going slow enough that while it did interfere, it didn’t interfere that much, so my engine lives, but runs a little rough. Let’s go ahead and get some more of the neglected preventive maintenance done while we are at it.
So now, the wrong car broke (if it was the Mrs. we would have just jumped into car debt), I’ve wiped out our meager savings towards
replacement , and erased the ‘car emergency fund.’ But hey, my car runs … roughly, but it runs…
But, we had no problems with it until it catastrophically failed…
