August 13, 2014--Midcoast: Auto Repair Purgatory

This will be brief because I spent most of yesterday in car repair purgatory and ran out of time and energy for blogging.

Our car was making a put-put sound that concerned me. At breakfast I described it to my boating friend Stan who knows a lot about cars and engines. When he looked at me quizzically, I said, "Like the sound of a boat. A Put-Put."

I thought that might amuse him, but he was having one of his grumpy mornings and it annoyed him because he felt I was casting aspersions on boats in general, even though I meant a small, outboard motor boat. A Put-Put. Not his boat which emits a macho roar when underway.

Stan said this wasn't Car Talk where callers tell the Tappet Brothers how their cars sound and that helps them diagnose the problem over the radio. And with that, he left the diner in a bit of a huff-huff before I could draw on his mechanical expertise.

Driving over to the VW dealer in Brunswick I was thinking there was something seriously wrong and that to repair it they'd have to drop the engine. In my over-heated imagination I was looking at a four-figure bill. Anything requiring dropping the engine, I fretted, runs into the thousands.

The good news: after checking out the car they told me that the part would cost just $10 and for the labor it would take "only" two to three hours.

The bad news: this would not fix the put-put but the transmission which was leaking.

"The transmission? When did that happen?" I was close to screaming.

"Can't tell. All I know is that the transmission housing is wet all over. And, sorry," the service manager informed me, avoiding the sound effects, "but that won't take care of what's concerning you."

I interrupted to say, it wasn't the transmission that had been worrying me but now it was, even more than the "you-know-what."

"Well for that--the you-know-what--I'm afraid you need two new tires."

"What? For the put-put? I bought new tires, four of them, just two years ago."

Understanding, he nodded, "It's all the pot holes up here. They chew up tires. The bottom line still is that you need at least two. The ones on the rear are pretty chopped and that's what's making the," he lowered his voice, "put-put."

"What can I say," I said. "The car gods will do with me, with it, with them whatever they want. At least they won't have to drop the engine to mount the new tires. And considering the new transmission expense, I'll go to my tire dealer and have them replace the two."

"Okey dokey."

They must train them to be chipper, I thought. Like dentists.

"The good news," he said, "is the $10 part. The bad news," he clearly liked the good-news-bad-news business, "The bad news is that we have to order it and it won't be here until next Tuesday. In the meantime, you'll be fine. We'll top off the transmission fluid--like I said--it's leaking and . . ."

"I know. I know. The good news is all it needs is a $10 part. To tell you the truth, I'd feel better if it needed a $100 part. Then at least it would make sense to have to drop the engine. To drop it to install a cheap part seems like an extravagance."

"We'll try to avoid having to do that."

"That?"

"Drop the engine."

Later that day I went over to my tire place and had them order two new Michelins to match the other two they sold me two years ago.

"It was actually three years ago, sir," the tire manager corrected me. When I looked at him skeptically he pointed to the screen and said, "I have it right here in the computer. You put almost 45,000 miles on those babies. So to need only two, considering the roads 'round here, is not that bad."

The bad news again, I thought, or was it the good news? "Though I'd recommend your getting four."

Of course. Why not five? I probably could use a new spare even though I never used it. Just being driven around in the trunk for 45,000 miles would wear out a spare.

"Whatever," I said, fully beaten down.

Two days later when I returned to the tire dealer, worrying all the way about the transmission fluid hemorrhaging through the housing, the tires were there and in an hour were balanced, installed, and the wheels were aligned.

"Good you could do the alignment without having to drop . . ." I stopped myself from concluding the thought. Rona's jabbing me in the ribs helped.

And then back at the VW service yesterday, with the $10 part in hand, they gave us a loaner--"Why don't the two of you drive over to Frosty's. It's early and they should still have a selection of their donuts left. I love their glazed twists."

"They're his favorites," Rona said, "Though I like the chocolate cream myself."

"How long did you say it will take?" I asked, all business, though the thought of a couple of twists was appealing.

"I'll call in a couple of hours to let you know how things are going. In the meantime, have fun in Brunswick."

Forsty's actually had a fullish assortment of their donuts left and by the third one, with sugar and caffeine rushing through my system, I was thinking more about having fun then what might be going on back at VW. Coffee was more on my mind than transmission fluid.

"I wonder why it costs so much?" I said under my breath, contradicting what I just said about being focused on fun.

"Anything made from oil," Rona said, "costs a fortune. Look at what's happening with Russia and the Middle East."

"You had to remind me of that? Here I was trying to have fun and . . ."

"You're the one who muttered about why it costs so much. And you weren't talking about donuts."

"Touché," I said, trying to sound as bouncy as the VW service manager, "Let's go antiquing."

Two hours later, antiqued-out, we still hadn't heard from VW.

"Maybe call them?" I suggested to Rona.

She dialed them up. "What? What are you saying?" Now she was the one sounding all agitated. "The axel bolt? What does the axel have to do with the transmission? And why am I asking you that? I don't even know what a transmission does. For all I know it's connected to the axel and . . ."

"And when you dropped the engine," I shouted as a non sequitur into Rona's cell phone, which she promptly yanked away from me.

"OK. We'll be there in 15, 20 minutes. Then you'll explain everything." She snapped the phone shut.

Driving over, I said we needed to be ready for sticker shock. Rona had reported that when the mechanic did whatever needed to be done to the axel bolt the "thread came off with the bolt."

"Which means they'll probably have to replace the entire transmission housing."

"What's that?"

"I have no idea," I confessed. "It's the thing they told us was wet from whatever was leaking. I'm just assuming that . . ."

"You assumed they'd have to drop the engine to fix the tires. So what do you know?"

"Just that at least they gave us a brand new car for a loaner. Last time they gave us a clunker. Since it will take a week to get the new transmission parts and three days labor to install them, at least we'll have a good car to drive around in."

"Only three days of labor? I would have thought no less than five." Rona was making fun of me.

"Could be," I said, more than half serious.

When we got back to VW Rona noticed a car just like ours being washed. "They wouldn't be washing it," I said, "They told you they still have a lot of work to do to fix it. It must be one just like ours. Like you said, they'll be keeping ours a week or more and wouldn't be washing it until they replace the transmission."

"But that's a gray Passat wagon with New York plates--E*U*F* . . ."

"That must be us!" I almost jumped for joy. "Somehow while we were driving over they must have finished it."

"Or jiggered it together temporally so they can get their loaner back. I'm not driving around for a week with a patched-together car."

"I'm with you," I said. "Let's go inside and see what's-what."

What-was-what is that somehow the mechanic, in the last 15 minutes, figured out how to repair it permanently, assuming anything having to do with cars is permanent.

Not trusting, Rona said, "You're not sending us off with a car that's not fixed properly, are you?"

The manager leaned forward across the counter and whispered, "We'd never do that. It would be illegal. And you could sue VW for a fortune. And win," he winked, as if he was offering to represent us in a slam-dunk liability lawsuit.

"And the best thing," he said to me, now pulled back up to his full height, "the best thing is we didn't even need to drop the engine."

He and Rona rocked with laughter. They thought that was about the funniest thing they had heard all week.

The bill came to $248, ten dollars of it for the part. The rest labor. Not bad news.