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.