Yay, Volkswagen!
Ok, actually, my car is quickly slipping away into lemon-hood. I was planning on bringing it to my mechanic for a final tune-up before selling it, and the night before I was going to drive up there the car started overheating. It seems to overheat after only 2 or 3 minutes of driving. I went to the dealer to get some coolant, and they told me they would have to charge $175 just to take a look at the car and tell me what they thought was wrong. So I decided to take my chances and see if I could get up to my mechanic, Auto Serra, in Valhalla, NY, 30 miles north of the city!! So I took the harrowing trip on the Hutch, praying that the engine wouldn't just explode. I could basically drive for around 4 or 5 minutes before the heating indicator went all the way to the top, and I would have to pull off and let all of the steam out of the cooling tank for 15 minutes before I could get going again. One nice thing about Volkswagens is that their engine takes a special kind of coolant and can actually take straight water as well, unlike most American cars. I stopped at a nice little roadside corner market in Yonkers (somehow felt like Ohio, like I was in another state), and refilled my 2 big gallons of water which I had already used. I almost called the tow truck to come get me there (still 20 miles from Valhalla), but decided to give it one last chance after sitting for half an hour eating bananas. Amazingly, the car made it all the way to Valhalla, only overheating when I was 100 yards from the garage!
The good news is that I made it there, the bad news is that Joe Serra is afraid there is a blown main gasket in the engine block, which is a huge repair, and will end of costing over 2 grand, which is almost 2/3rds of what I thought I could get back for the car. However, he said there is a chance that just repairing the water pump will fix the problem, although he is skeptical. Fingers are crossed that I can at least get this car back for the next month and a half.
Ok, more baby posts coming soon. Here is the song of the day:
No comments:
Post a Comment