Death of a Subaru, Part 2

When we left off, my car, post $225 tow, was lurking in the depths of the Subaru dealership. I ventured forth the next day to discover that it would cost another $116 for the mechanic to even look at the car.

I didn't really have another option, so I paid the $116 and then went to my internship at the VA, anxiously awaiting a phone call. Unfortunately, in the middle of all of this car nonsense, my phone battery decided it was a great time to lose the ability to hold a charge for longer than two hours. I had to wait until 5:30 that evening to charge the phone and call the mechanic.

The verdict? Clutch was burned out and needed replacing. The cost? $1700.

I'm going to let that sink in for a minute before I continue.

$1700.


. . .




$1700.



$1700 to replace a clutch in a 14 year old car?!


I'm have a sneaking suspicion that this was an overestimation because I'm a fairly hapless 23 year old female. He also went on to describe what else was wrong with the car in as threatening a manner as possible - to imply that if I dared replace just the clutch the car was going to burst into a fiery deathtrap in a matter of hours.


Luckily, my preceptor had mentioned a very qualified mechanic who would be sure to give me a better deal. I called and was quoted the still outrageous but not quite as bad price of $1100. My father agreed to pay the cost. Otherwise, he was going to drive down to Reno towing a car for me to use and tow the broken one back to Idaho to fix himself.


(and people wonder why I'm so stubborn)


The issue was getting my car to this other mechanic. He did not have a tow truck, and I was not going to pay more money to haul my broken car around Reno. Enter my amazing roommate, Cassidy. She's had a plethora of towing experiences and was more than willing to help me out.


Two problems. One, she drives a Hyundai that weighs probably half as much as my Subaru. Two, said Subaru has two tow hooks instead of one. We threaded the rope through the hooks and wrapped it around itself before setting off.


We had each other on speakerphone during this less-than-well-thought-through adventure, and there was a great deal of needless yelling. Mostly from me. We took back roads as much as we could, but Reno is circled by one massively busy road you have to venture on to get anywhere. Oh, and it was 5:00 in the afternoon - the only time of day we could do it. And dark.


Once we figured out that I was going to have to be the main braking force, it was fairly smooth sailing. Until an idiot cut us off in an intersection. Cassidy screamed and hit the brakes, I screamed and pushed really hard on the brakes, and a giant BANG rang out. Cassidy's yelling turned into "Did you hit my car?! DID YOU HIT MY CAR?!"


I thought I had too, until I realized that I hadn't actually felt hitting anything. She, after a moment, realized that she hadn't moved forward at all. We assumed the sudden slack in the line caused the tow hook to slam into the ground and continued.


Halfway there, Cassidy brought up the very good point that we have numerous male classmates with better cars and probably more towing experience who we could have press ganged into helping us. We bemoaned our idiocy for the few miles remaining but made it to the mechanic without further incident. That giant bang we had heard? That was the tow rope untangling itself and becoming barely hooked to my car.


The mechanic came out of his office, saw the two of us and our awkward setup, and laughed until he cried. My father decided that since the car "only" has 215,000 miles, it would be worth paying $1900 to have every single possible thing replaced under the hood. And now Ingrid will get to drive it.



I feel it needs to be stated that my horrible luck has continued during this Christmas break. I took another old Subaru down to Pocatello. It started off fine, but when I got there I discovered that two of the tires were flat. Without me hitting anything.


I am clearly not meant to drive these cars.

Death of a Subaru, Part 1

Or, why I will love Buster Blue forever and ever.

My trials with cars have been fairly well documented. This was, however, by far the worst.

A few weeks ago, Buster Blue was playing in Crystal Bay (near Tahoe). I had spent the day working on rotation projects and preparing for a gigantic pharmacy convention and was huddled underneath my electric blanket when I realized that their show was that night. I debated for a good half hour as to whether or not I should attend (as my greatest weakness in winter is an electric blanket), but decided to venture forth and be social.

This proved to be a mistake.

The drive from Reno to Tahoe is along a small mountain highway that crawls through forests and up hills, that twists and turns and is generally inhospitable. It was a fairly pleasant journey, until I had left the last town before Crystal Bay long behind and was creeping my way up the last mountain. The car started to decelerate. I figured this was due to the grade of the hill, downshifted, and continued up the incline. The car continued to decelerate despite my desperate pleading and promises of sacrificing various creatures to the Subaru gods. Then it rolled to a stop. Though the engine would still roar, the car would not move anywhere.

I was alone. In the winter. In a car stuck on the side of a hill in the woods at 10:00 at night. The occasional vehicle would zoom past, not even slowing when they saw my blinking hazards. I sat there for a few minutes, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. The car had not seemed to be overheating, or acted like it was low on oil, but for lack of better things to do I stumbled around to the hood and checked. Coolant and oil were fine. The only thing left to do was call my father.

"Sooo the car is stopped on the side of the road and won't move."

A sigh. "Where are you?"

"On the way to Tahoe on the side of the road?"

"What the hell are you doing driving to Tahoe at 10:00 on a Saturday night?!"

It struck me that this was the electric blanket's revenge for my decision to leave its addictive embrace. 

The padre proceeded to call the insurance company and I stayed sitting at the side of the road, mutely watching cars pass me by. Then one pulled off in front of me - another Subaru, and a young man came hustling down the hill toward my car. He claimed he could not leave another Subaru driver in distress and offered to attempt to fix the car.

The car was unfixable (why is it always unfixable?), but he helped me maneuver my car about 200 yards down the mountain to the side of the road. He then offered me a ride to Crystal Bay - he was going to see the same show. I weighed my options. Five minute ride with a potential axe murderer to a nice warm casino v. hours sitting in an increasingly frigid car on the side of the road, easy prey for any axe murderers hoofing their way through the forest. I got in the car when he gave me the number to the highway patrol, figuring that if he was going to murder me in the short time it would take to get to the casino, at least highway patrol would know about it.

I stumbled into the casino, covered in mud and looking, I imagine, rather stressed. I walked around, waiting for the insurance to call and tell me what kind of towing I could expect. In my anxious meanderings I ran into Bryan (singer/guitar/banjo/saxophone).

"Dude, what the hell happened to you?" He was dressed for his show, lounging near one of the slot machines. I quickly explained, with more than a little flailing, and he leapt into helpful action - offered me one of their hotel rooms if I couldn't get back to Reno, the use of their AAA card if my insurance wouldn't do any towing, and best of all, a beer. He took me to a hotel room where I could dump my muddy belongings and sit in warmth for a few minutes.

There I met up with the other members of the band, all of whom could not be nicer, more helpful people. (This is where I order all of you to go buy their music, because it is amazing and they are amazing). I get the call from my insurance - they will cover a grand total of 13 miles of towing. THIRTEEN MILES. What are the chances that anyone, anywhere, breaks down bad enough to need towing withing THIRTEEN MILES of a shop? Because I had no options, I agreed to pay the whopping $225 for a tow to the Subaru dealer back in Reno. Unfortunately, the tow truck couldn't get to my car until 1:30 that morning.

Andy (singer/guitar/trombone/banjo/piano - seriously, these people are talented) offered me a ride to the car at the appropriate time, and then we went back to the main show room so they could perform. It was fantastic. 

After the show, Andy hopped into their tour van and drove me back to that lonely spot on the side of the road where my poor car was lurking. We ended up sitting there for an hour past the appointed time because my insurance had told the company I was in Truckee. Let me illustrate for you exactly how wrong that was:

As you can see, we have the location of my car, and Truckee. Which is not where my damn car was.

An hour and a half later, after a ride in the tow truck full of awkward silences, I was back in the confines of my electric blanket. Wondering why I had bothered leaving.

Stay tuned for Part 2 - in which the Subaru dealership tries to rip me off and my roommate and I are total badasses.

Now go and buy all of Buster Blue's music. It's on iTunes.