E and I seem to have bad "Carma". We both take fairly good care of our cars, they're serviced regularly and we always fix or replace things as needed, but they consistently seem to break down at the same time. E's car needed a lot of TLC and has been in the shop for a little while now. It got everything from new gaskets to new tires and just when we thought it was ready to come home, it has to go back into the shop for another tweak. You'd think that would be enough bad carma for one family but you'd be wrong. Instead, my car Sydney joins the foray by breaking down in spectacular fashion.
I was supposed to take grumpy man Zena to the vet today. He was scheduled for a check up and I needed to pick up another bottle of antibiotics for Zuzu (aka Fuckie) that I'd already paid for and had waiting for me. I nabbed Zena with an empty promise of food, got him in his box, and set off with him protesting loudly in the front seat. I would have given him a dish of food but he can be a vindictive pottier and I didn't want him peeing and or pooping in my car, both of which he's done at his last two appointments. Fun times.
The vet we're currently seeing since our old one closed her doors is down in the Westchester area of Los Angeles. I was driving along, making good time for LA and moving from one freeway to the next, trying to quiet the disgruntled Zena so I could hear my Harry Potter audio book (priorities!), when my battery light comes on. This is super weird, the battery light usually comes on when the battery is dead and the car wont start. I'm driving the car at freeway speeds right now so it's obviously started, but I figure I'd better take the next exit so I can check it out. I start moving towards the right lane from the middle when I notice that my car slowing down
Fast, without any input from me. Uh oh.
This would be the second time my car has stopped on this freeway since I bought it. The first time it happened, my oil pan had been punctured by a runaway piece of something that fell off the car in front of me. This time, there was no apparently physical explanation but the same thing happened. The car slowed, I'm fairly sure it was because the engine stalled, I could barely steer and I couldn't use the brakes. I stepped on the brakes as hard as I could, steered for the triangle of space between the right lane and a merging on-ramp, put my parking break on and got the car stopped and in park. Total deja vu.
Once stopped, I made the usual phone calls. E to let him know what happened, Roadside Assistance to get me a tow, my mother who was closest to my location to come get Zena, my Mechanic to let him know I was coming, and the vet to cancel Zena's appointment. Roadside Assistance also contacted the CA highway patrol to send out an officer to make sure my little car didn't get smashed where it stood. LA drivers are not known for their observational skills and I was definitely not on the side of the road. In the time it took to make these quick calls, my car got HOT. Zena was quickly over heating but my power windows were only cracked a bit and I couldn't open a door without risking it being smashed off. When the CHP officer pulled up the first thing I did was ask if we could chill in his air conditioning and he was really nice and happy to oblige.
Although my Roadside Assistance tow truck was on the way, the CHP truck showed up first and elected to get me off the freeway instead of waiting for my truck. Like I said, not the best location to be stopped, even if I wasn't directly in a lane. The CHP officer was nice enough to let Zena ride in his air conditioning while I rode with the tow truck driver and they were able to get me off the next exit and onto a quiet residential street. Thank goodness Zena didn't pee in the officer's car, I was worried but he seemed to hold it together despite being clearly uncomfortable. A few minutes later my mom showed up to get Zena home and my tow truck arrived to take me to my mechanic. They were able to get my car started, though it did
not run happily, and my tow truck followed me to the mechanic to make sure it didn't stall again.
Thus far everyone has different theories as to what went wrong. The tow truck driver thinks it's my alternator, which must have died, causing my car to run off the battery for a handful of minutes before exhausting it and stalling. E agrees with this theory as well since the alternator makes the most sense. My mechanic isn't sold though, he turned the car on and after listening for a few minutes declared that my car is not firing all of it's cylinders. It's also vibrating really hard at a certain RPM but refused to spit out an error code even though something is clearly wrong. None of that seems like a good indicator of a quick fix, I'm seeing dollar signs already and we won't know more until tomorrow.
It never ceases to amaze me how quickly things can pile up. Here we are, trying to make up our minds about a clinic and gearing up to spend ~40k when both our cars break down. We really don't have the budget to cover expensive repairs or a new (used) car right now. I don't even know what we'd get if we did need a new car. We've talked and talked about getting a nice family car as soon as we're successful with IVF, since both of our cars are fairly small and clearly not super reliable, but what if we buy a big car and our attempts to build our family fail? I'd be stuck with a lovely car with three empty rows to remind me.
I've got everything crossed that whatever is wrong with Sydney is a (fairly) quick and easy fix. Come on universe, we could really use a bone here.
