Sorry for the delayed post this week! Also, I've now fixed all of my "breaks" vs. "brakes" typos!
As most of you know, David and I own quite a few cars (well, mostly David). Right now we have a Dodge Dakota truck, a VW R32, a Mazda RX7, a Toyota MR2, and the Saab that David restored in high school. In our driveway currently we have the truck, R32, and RX7. The RX7 is running pretty well at the moment, though I seem to have trouble with it stalling on me that David doesn't have - I attribute this to operator error :-/ The truck was running well except I drove it to Vermont last weekend and had a little bit of trouble with the brakes. The R32 has just been one unhappy car all around.
The brake saga with the truck began when I drove Dad downtown (in Vermont) to pick up his car from the shop (he'd had his tires changed) and we almost blew through a stop sign. He said "who taught you to drive, the stop sign is way behind us now!" I apologized and explained that the brakes were acting weird and that even when I had them 95% to the floor they weren't responding, resulting in delayed braking for me. He suggested we have the lines checked before too long. Well, after dropping Dad off I hop on the interstate to head back to Boston and both the ABS and !BRAKE! (or something like that) lights come on. Caroline experiences her heart jumping into her throat, thinks "uh oh", and calls David. David says "turn around and have your dad check the brake fluid as a first step." Okydoke, turning around. Brakes are important! Dad and I head off to the auto parts store and put over half a bottle of brake fluid in and then watch it as it leaks out of the rear passenger side drum. Woops. David and I make a last minute decision to have me stay in Vermont through the weekend and have him and Laura (my friend from IL who is living with us for the month of August) drive up to Vermont as well to enjoy a weekend at Joe's Pond. That would allow all of us to water ski and have some fun as well as allow David and my dad to fix the truck brakes. Everything worked out as planned more or less, and the truck is now back on the road and we are all one iota stronger from our water skiing endeavors.
The R32 has been slowly developing small problems that haven't been urgent by themselves but have culminated into a rather long repair list. The "icing on the cake" was when a hole appeared in the exhaust (or down pipe out of the engine I think?) and turned my car into what sounded like a go cart. The car also needed new rotors, a new fuel pump, new struts, an oil change, an AC recharge, a new fan (I don't know which one), and it could really use some body work on the passenger side (thanks to high speed winds and trash cans in IL, bad garage parking by yours truly, and some idiot in Somerville keying my car). David more or less does all of our car maintenance himself, and has said over and over again how much easier it is to work on the cars using the lift in his new swanky 15 ft tall garage. The other night while working on my rotors I caught him singing and dancing to the radio and just having what seemed to be a great time - who knew car maintenance could be so much fun! I had to wonder if he had inhaled too many car fumes or something. Anyway, this week he has changed the struts, rotors, and oil for my car. We decided to spend the money to have VW fix the exhaust because we were running low on time (we want to drive the car to Woodchuck this weekend - David's family's camp in the Adirondacks) and because it looked like it might be a huge pain for David to do. At some point we have to make a decision on which is more important to us - our time or our money. This was one case where it seemed worth it to have VW take care of it. They were also able to clear a somewhat disturbing airbag light that had come on, though thankfully was not an indicator of a malfunctioning air bag. The fuel pump repair is still on the list.
Hopefully after this round of repairs David will be able to take a breather from the cars for a bit! Though it seems he might actually enjoy his evenings in the garage :) The MR2 is currently listed for sale on Vermont craigslist because David has realized that he just doesn't have time to make this project car he had hoped it would be. I'm a little torn about whether selling it is the right move because I know he is sad about it, but at the same time having that car around means he gets to spend less time on other things he is also really interested in - like working on his go cart or going to Vermont to become the next pro water skier! We'll see what initial interest the Craigslist post brings in and then decide our next move. We have talked some about selling my car as well and buying something that gets better gas mileage and has a little bit more cargo room, but this probably won't happen for a couple more years. We both really enjoy driving my car and with all of the recent repairs it should be all set for a little while at least.
Anybody else having car woes? I'm sure my dad has a few good stories to share at least....
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