Deja Vu

I'm sitting at home playing Madden 04 (I only have a PS1... sorry, I'm not cool enough to upgrade) when I get a phone call and The Wife is having problems with the Mazda... guess what's wrong... the transmission, again. She gets stuck on a busy street, fortunately for us we have AAA and get a tow back to the auto shop.

This is getting ridiculous, if it wasn't free I would be going to another shop. For the first time in a while fortune looked upon me and it was not the transmission, but the coolant line in the transmission. It only took a day, but how many weeks will it be before something else goes wrong. I haven't gone two months this year with out having this thing at the shop. We are just under $2,000 away from having this thing paid off. I'm wishing it was now so we could save that 265 a month a buy something that doesn't suck as much. Even a used rental car can't be this much trouble.

The problems don't stop with the Mazda, the tank of a Honda is running fine, but can't pass state inspection, why? I need two tired, or so we did a few weeks ago. Now all four tires won't allow me to pass. I understand why we have these yearly inspections and for the most part they are good, expect when I have to replace something. The back two tires are on the boarder and if I find the wrong inspector I would fail yet again. What's the running price, $356 for the lowest tires they sell. Great more money pumped into the car that does not involve my gas tank.

Here We Go Again

Sunday I was driving the Mazda and I noticed that the tachometer was around 6000 RPMs. That's not normal, I turn of the radio and roll up the windows so I can hear what is going on. Well, ever time the car would shift into fifth gear the car would shutter a little and the RPMs would jump. As I kept driving I started to lose fourth gear, luckily I was near our church and nothing less happened. Church is over and I have The Wife follow me home to make sure nothing else happens. Of course, I now can't get the car to stay in third gear.

Monday morning comes around and we are going to take it to the shop and you won't believe what happened? I completely lost third gear and second was starting to act up. You may or may not remember, but I had the transmission on this car replaced in March. My level of frustration on a scale of one to ten (1 being calm 10 being an insane crazy person that has to have the cops called) I'm a 41. I walk in as calm as I can, I tell them the problem and the guy remembers my car and makes the comment "I hope for you that it is the transmission because that's going to be cheaper for you." I'm thinking two things here.

1. Something else is wrong and it's going to cost me.
2. I am going to get a free transmission.

Later on Monday I get a call and come to find out... it's the transmission. He doesn't tell me exactly what is wrong, but I'm guessing they got a bad transmission and the gear box went bad.

This is kind of a good thing, I'm getting all the work done for free, but I'm without a car for a week. I might get another lovely loaner, but that won't be until sometime on Wednesday. I'm just amazed that I am going to have my third transmission on a car that has 84,000 miles. When will all this end? I need some really good news soon.

Car Problems... Again

A few months ago The Mazda started to have a bad vibration and I took it in and was told that it was the tires. We replaced then and guess what, the vibration did not go away. We would have fixed it right away, but other things happened. Had to fix The Wife's car and the whole no job think kind of hurt.

I mentioned in a previous post that we got some money back and part of it went to fixing the cars. I take The Mazda in and they find out that the bar and the behring that goes from the transmission to the passenger front tire is shot. It will cost about $5oo to replace. We are fine with that and start to plan when we can get The Honda in to fix the air conditioner. Later in the day I get a call from the shop. The part is in and fixed, but... I don't like to her but on a sentence that should have a period. I'm informed that most of the vibration is gone, but the differential in the transmission is causing some of the vibration.

The place we go to is nice, but the guy who makes all these calls can't keep on track. He keeps veering off asking me if I really like this car, if we need two cars and other not fun questions. Finally it is reveled if we wish to fix this car it will cost us $2626. I guess Mazda thought it was a good idea to put the part that is broke inside the transmission. To just fix the differential will cost us as much as a replacement tranny.

We do the math and we have enough between the amount we set aside for cars, emergency fund and the money we were going to send to the state of North Carolina. I've had some people say that we should just go out and buy a used car and be done with it. The only problem is, the car we buy for three grand is going to be pretty bad and I like my car. I might as well just fix it and keep a car I like.

The big issue I have with all this is five months ago when I brought the car in, did these guys actually look at the problem or did they just look at the tires. I keep wondering how much damage was caused by the bad diagnoses. I'm debating about bringing this up. I don't want to get a discount out of it, I just want to know. If they tell me they can't be for sure or give me a bad answer, I'll be looking for a new mechanic... again. Seriously, why do my cars hate North Carolina so much.