The day started out lovely.
OK, it was a bit chilly this morning and Darth Ruud has been particularly evil of late frosting up due to the temperatures dropping into the 20s with high humidity and it appears that the defrost cycle is either not kicking in to melt the frost or it is not handling the amount of frost on the coils.
At least that’s not an emergency and it’ll be mended soon enough.
What I really could have done without was the excitement after picking up Katie and Alex from school.
You never want to see messages on the driver’s panel indicating an unexpected engine overheating followed by more dire messages suggesting you go to idle and then shut down the engine entirely. The other messages indicating that traction control shut down and other systems were failing were bad enough but the “replace engine oil” message followed by “reduced engine power” was the scariest ones of them all.
These are the last things you want to see at the bottom of the southbound ramp from I-440 that takes you on to the I-87 motorway that bypasses Knightdale!
Flight instructors will tell you that 99% of the training you get is to handle the 1% of situations you hope you never have to deal with in the air.
Somehow we made it on very reduced power and then idle to the top of the flyover ramp enough to have momentum to get down the ramp and across the mercifully light traffic to the New Hope exit I’d normally take anyway.
As I’m limping along in that exit lane, someone must have been looking out for us because Nicholas just happened to take the northbound ramp onto I-87 in his Camry and passed right by my stricken Traverse.
You want to say that’s an amazing coincidence?
I’d agree.
But if you were of a mind to chalk it up to divine providence, I’d be hard-pressed not to agree with you as well.
And this the day after he was on the other side of the bridge and saw us pass by him as he was sitting at the stoplight waiting to turn left onto New Hope and he happened to notice a blue coloured Traverse with a Mistletoe sticking her head out of door 2L. Not many of those running around the Greater Metropolitan Raleigh AreaTM!
Whatever kind elements put us in the same place at the time we needed to be there most and managed to allow me to get the Traverse up the ramp, through the light with an engine that is sounding very rough with worrying graduating to utterly unfortunate noises from the pistons and into a car park before everything completely blew the bonnet to Kingdom Come, you have my most sincere thanks!
Whilst he was making the loop back to us via Hodge and Poole, a quick look under the engine and beneath the bonnet tells the tragic tale that there was a catastrophic failure of the engine and oil in places it ought not to be rather than inside the engine block where it belongs.
The irony is that I was planning on doing an oil change for her on Friday morning when she was due for servicing. It looks like that oil change may well be with a side of a fair heap if not all of the engine to go with it.
Arranging the tow truck through the insurance company’s roadside assistance people was an unmitigated joy. It took 43 minutes on their web page followed by dealing with a representative on the phone where we spent most of the time discovering that their credit card payment gateway had failed.
Nicholas (new recently hired service technician at Leith Toyota) had arrived by that point and got to see the tragic situation under the bonnet firsthand. Get a good look at that one…I’m sure mechanics have a technical term for it but us lay people who know a bit about engines and where oil ought to be would describe it as “utterly screwed likely going all the way to completely {Carolina Hurricanes goal horn sound}-ed”.
As I’m dealing with the “roadside assistance” person who seemed more into playing “mother may I” with her supervisor who was not quite helpful and didn’t seem to get the concept of “time is of the essence”, I’m simultaneously on Nick’s phone trying to arrange to hire a car whilst the Traverse is getting her guts mended.
The first attempt at this didn’t exactly go…well.
OK, I get it…they would like to know when their vehicle is likely to come back to them. But when Hendrick Chevrolet advises that they might not be able to look at her until next Tuesday and we’re not exactly dealing with a trivial job of mending things, I truly have no idea how long I’m going to be in the rental. No one can actually answer that at this point.
Nor can I answer when I might be able to get to Cary…I’m not certain I’ve got a lorry coming round to take the Traverse there, much less when one might well arrive.
OK, I’ll get back to them. Maybe.
The roadside assistance person finally manages to get the tow dispatched where I’ve given up on their credit card gateway getting mended and I’ll pay the $15 and change in cash when their driver gets there which is supposed to cover the four extra miles over the thirteen miles I’m apparently allotted (but curiously the last time she was towed to Hendrick was from my house two miles further than where I was this afternoon with no extra charges at all).
Keep that figure in mind.
Her last act is to ask if I want her to send text alerts as to where the tow truck is and before I can answer she adds the “message and data rates may apply”.
At this point, I laugh. I couldn’t help myself.
I’m looking at several thousand dollars in repairs and hiring a car in the interim and she’s concerned about the minuscule amount that texting might cost the very few people in the USA that don’t have unlimited text and data?
I’m quoted 75-90 minutes for the truck to arrive so now I’m off to try to hire a car for the morning from a different agency that’s between Enloe and Leith Toyota on Capital Blvd.
This time I get a phone representative that’s clearly in India. These are the moments you thank your lucky stars there’s quite a few mates from India in the IT trade and I’ve heard most of the dialects and accents (she had to be somewhere between Bangalore and Hyderabad by my reckoning). She’s another one concerned about data and messaging rates being applicable and that was worth another round of nervous laughter.
Reservation gets sorted out (finally!) and not too long afterward the tow truck arrives. Of course, right as he turns up…the car hire joint rings me up wanting additional details and I can’t exactly fob him off completely.
But I do get him to hold on long enough to point out to the tow truck driver that the engine’s completely bought it and that if he needed help free-rolling her in neutral, Nicholas and I would be more than happy to help push and/or stop her from running over the kerb and the flowers near by.
You can see the oil on the ground and elsewhere it ought not to be. You can’t miss it.
So of course as I’m back to the car hire guy who’s car hire-splaining how hiring a car works as if I’ve not done it on occasion over 30 years…the tow truck driver starts the Traverse and backs her out of the space into position.
The noises the engine was making when he did this was truly horrific!
That’s kind of why I was strongly suggesting free wheeling her in neutral and offering two beefy gents to the tow driver to help push if need be!!!!
I truly don’t know how I could have been any more {Carolina Hurricanes goal horn sound}-ing clearer about that!
I don’t wish that feeling of helplessness in the face of utter stupidity upon my worst enemy. As it was, it was all I could do to try to find some measure of peace to not completely lose any semblance of control I had over my temper.
As the driver hooks up the Traverse to the wheel dolly behind the truck, I manage to ring off from car hire guy long enough to see the Traverse secured to the dolly and give the driver a $20 bill to cover the quoted overage charge.
As he’s writing a receipt for $15, the tow company dispatcher rings me wanting me to pay extra for the overage. I tell him I’ve just handed his driver a $20 bill (and didn’t get any change nor did I really expect any thought it might have been nice to have been asked or at least acknowledge that the other $5 is some sort of tip) and the dispatcher starts trying to fish for more than what I was quoted.
I think I’m beginning to see why this tow company has a one-star rating on Yelp. Mind you, I tried to give the benefit of the doubt as there was only one review and I’m out of options at this point but the circumstances of the review were eerily similar.
After telling the dispatcher I’ve paid $20 to cover the quoted overage two times and I ask him specifically “are we OK at this point, can your driver go?”, he rings off with no further comment and the driver is finally on his way to Cary.
One dares to dream.
I did ring up Hendrick to let them know the Traverse was finally coming their way but I wasn’t sure when he’d arrive. I’m kind of glad I did because if he arrived after a certain time, there’s a procedure they’re supposed to follow to drop the keys in a box rather than leave them in a vehicle (though truth be told, anyone wanting to steal the Traverse in the condition she’s in right now probably deserves being blown up if the engine truly lets go worse than it already is). I felt a lot better that they were going to keep an eye out for her and secure her properly even if she did arrive a little late to their lot.
I think I’ll be making a trip over there tomorrow after we make the run to Durham and back. Speaking of which, I do rather think it might have been a bit more considerate of the Traverse to skive off of that trip in a lot less expensive way…if she didn’t want to go, there’s kinder ways to make that happen!
With the Traverse on her way, the four of us pile into Nick’s Camry and go the short distance back to my house off of the Rogers Lane where Mistletoe does a great job of lifting all of our spirits.
Let me take a moment to say that I appreciated Nicholas and his efforts on our behalf far more than I have the words to properly convey. He was truly a lifesaver for not only literally being there when all of this was going down but getting us all safely home because the tow drivers won’t transport passengers any more.
But more importantly is just how much he’s grown in the past few months since he’s had the freedom and the responsibility that Camry has brought. OK, he did have a couple of times where he didn’t exactly read the room that really wasn’t ready for jokes with all of the stress of the afternoon and knowing the massive bills that are coming.
And let’s just say his play list on the way back down the hill on New Bern Ave certainly did rock the irony quite hard.
“Cool the Engines” by Boston.
Seriously?!?
Are you {Carolina Hurricanes goal horn sound}-ing kidding me?
Yeah, I can laugh about that.
But Nicholas really saved our bacon this afternoon and thanks to that Camry, we’ll be able to get Katie to school and me to hire the car before he heads off to work in the morning.
Maybe then we can get back to the insanity that passes for normal around here. 😉
So yeah, I’m definitely feeling Basil’s vibe as he’s beating his Austin 1300 with a tree branch after having given the poor car a right thorough tongue-lashing.
God knows I was thinking similarly unpleasant thoughts once I managed to limp from the motorway into the car park.
But that’s the thing about love, isn’t it?
I truly love my Traverse especially as this one really hasn’t been a hangar queen. She and I have spent more time together than I have with most of the people I know. And right now, I’m feeling very out of sorts having lost what freedom I have to go where I will.
For me, that’s a feeling worse than death.
Would I love to find a convenient tree branch for some thrashing therapy?
You betcha.
But tonight it was enough to settle for some frozen green therapy instead whilst rewarding Nicholas with some tasty Mexican and then after we got back to the house, a bit more therapy with my very special and tolerant neighbour Miguel whose kindness does more for me than he’ll ever know.
Even though this afternoon monumentally sucked ass and there’s certainly more suckage to come, it’s also a reminder to be truly thankful for friends and loved ones and knowing that there are people out there that have had a far worse day than I have and have more need of kind thoughts dealing with their sad moments that came their way.
You know who you are and I truly wish you and your family peace and consolation in the days to come.
As for me and the Traverse…that story is not yet finished. She will get mended and I’ll survive and we’ll soon get on with the next 200,000 miles together.
That reunion can’t come quickly enough. 🙁
