Car Trouble

My truck has started whining when I give it gas, so I made an appointment with my garage to have it looked at on Wednesday. Tuesday night, I dropped it off with the shop. Cowgrit and the boys would take me to work Wednesday morning, and pick me up that evening.

Well, Wednesday morning, we all loaded up into the mini van, (including the dog), and headed out to my office. Half way there, the mini van became possessed by the devil. Stuff started malfunctioning and warning lights started coming on all over the place. What the hell!?

The transmission started slipping gears, and we lost first gear completely. The brakes started stuttering when I applied enough just to slow down. The traction control warning light came on. The emmissions light came on. The drive light started flashing. OMG! WTF? BBQ!

I got us turned around and headed back towards home. We were at least 15 minutes from our house, and traffic was very heavy during the morning rush, we had both boys and the dog in the car with us, the school start time was approaching, and we were worried the van would break down before we got somewhere less inconvenient. And then the gas tank light came on.

“Oh, funny,” I said out loud, “if the van doesn’t break down, we’ll just run out of gas.”

My stress level reached a height usually reserved for falling out of an airplane without a parachute. But we made it home.

I called the garage and told them about the van’s problems. Unfortunately, they’d didn’t have time to work on it that day. But, since my truck was scheduled for the day, they suggested we switch the vehicles — since I can drive my truck safely with its problem, but the van is unsafe/unreliable with its problems. So I took the van in and got my truck back.

Now I’m not stressing over whether I can get the family home, I’m worrying over how much this repair is going to cost. I can’t imagine so much mechanical failure costing less than a 4 digit figure to repair.

* * *

Aaaand I just got the repair estimate. The mechanic told me that all the problems and lights were from the same source. I said, “Oh, good.” He said, “But there’s bad news.”

The problem is the transmission is failing and has to be completely replaced. Well, shit.

Bullgrit