After a weekend of having the Traverse back home where she belongs with a brand new transmission (and a new serpentine belt and oxygen sensor aft of the catalytic converter) and not doing anything particularly exciting to the transmission to test what passes for my luck, today’s mission of stopping by Sam Jones BBQ and then Sam’s Club after dropping Katie off at school seemed simple enough.
I should have known everything was going to go to hell and that right soon when I’m not even to the roundabout near the school and all of a sudden the speedometer does a huge dip and then returns back to normal almost instantly.
OK. Maybe I’m just being a bit hyper-sensitive after having dropped a huge pile of cash to get my Traverse back into service.
And indeed for a few minutes, all seemed well.
That is until I got to the Old Capitol downtown and noticed the speedometer wasn’t moving after making the left turn onto Dawson to head toward Sam Jones BBQ.
Not good.
She also wasn’t shifting out of first gear no matter what I tried and that seemed even worse. But at this point, I’m not seeing any messages on the indicator screen or other flashing lights of doom.
I limp my way all the way down Dawson St and turn right onto Lenoir and head up a slight incline.
That was when all hell broke loose with a sodden thump about a meter or so behind me and the warning indicators and the check engine light start going completely nuts as I’m trying to make my way up the hill.
I coast into a parking spot right in from the BBQ place I was intending to visit in a much less exciting way and shut down the engine and make a call to the garage who make it clear the Traverse needs to stay where she is and they’d be dispatching a tow truck round to collect her.
Are. You. *#@($&(@!@$**!! Kidding. Me?!?
At least I made it to the first stop I was planning and take advantage of a couple of minutes to bag some of Sam Jones’ Eastern-style swine wine.
The next call was to the car hire agency to quickly arrange for the cheapest car I could at short notice that would still reasonably accommodate a fluffy and panoramic physique and a pickup that would hopefully get me into the vehicle in time to collect Katie and Alex from school.
Once that was sorted and having a few minutes on my hands, there was another call I needed to make and a voice I *REALLY* needed to hear at that moment where I’m really feeling like I’m going to completely lose it.
Thank goodness this was one of the days she actually had her cell phone with her and turned on and we spent the next half hour talking which included a play-by-play of a huge dump truck backing into a car park next to me as people parked there are trying desperately to escape being blocked in and of course, that’s when the tow truck turns up to grab the Traverse.
He does about the fastest hook and book I’ve ever seen and soon we’re back at the garage for them to diagnose what went wrong with that brand-new transmission.
I’ll give the tow truck driver mad props…he positioned that tow truck in such a way that he could free-wheel the Traverse off the flatbed and into a tight arc of a turn into a space with no power whatsoever. He parked that Traverse perfectly dead stick. In fact, I’m still amazed because he didn’t take very long to position the truck before he already had her parked.
Well…here we go again! 🙁