One spring ritual around here is the April visit to the Dodge dealer to get the ol’ Durango sorted out after a season of driving up and down the rutted washboard formerly known as our private road. It was great when the warranty was still in effect, but the odometer hit 100K in March, so this time we’d have to pay. I was going to skip the whole thing, but then we got a safety recall notice on it, so the geek, who works nearby, dropped it off one morning.
I had his weak excuse for a vehicle, which is even more decrepit now that I backed into it last weekend. In my defense, he’d parked it within two feet of my rear bumper, almost blocking me in between it and the garage. But in his defense, it was one of those deals where I came out, looked at his car behind mine, got into my car, started it, looked in back of me and crashed right into the sucker.
How I could miss a whole car is troubling, unless you take into account that I was being yakked at by a ten yr old who just got “Disney Friends” for the Nintendo DS and has to tell me all about Stitch, Pooh, Dory and Simba’s doings whenever we get into the car. Why she saves it up until then is a mystery to me, as is so much of my interactions with other people, including Geekdaddy’s surprisingly gracious reaction when I went in to tell him that the Durango’s trailer hitch had gouged several huge holes in the Taurus’s front bumper.
His only concern was that the airbags hadn’t gone off and once I assured him that they hadn’t, he gave it a brief, unconcerned look and went back to blogging about union matters and Daughter and I went on our way to town.On our way, we picked up the mail and there was the recall notice for the Dodge. And that’s how Geekdaddy ended up calling me the next Monday afternoon to tell me that there was a little problem with my car.
“Well, it’s not unsafe anymore,” he said. “As a matter of fact, it couldn’t get any safer. It’s so safe that you can’t possibly get into an accident, because you can’t drive the thing. They can’t get it out of Park.”
He went on to tell me that the head mechanic was working on it, but if he couldn’t get the shift to move, the dealership would rent a car and deliver it to the geek at the computer mine where he works. However, about an hour later, he drove into the driveway in the Durango. Obviously, there’d been a paradigm shift. Or a shift of some kind.
He said the dealership had called another dealership or something and had figured out how to get the shift to move out of Park without stripping any gears or shredding any metal, which is a good thing when you’re dealing with transmissions. No harm was done. There was no charge and the Dodge was once more fit for duty.
The thing I found the most ironic about the whole thing has to do with the reason we brought it in. The safety recall was to fix a problem that Durangos have with jumping out of Park. Odd that the repair seemed to create the opposite problem of not being able to get it out of Park at all.
There’s probably some kind of deep message there, I’m sure, about balance or yin and yang or something philosophical like that. However, I don’t have time to go into it right now, because I have to call the Dodge dealer and ask them to come tow my car in so they can get it out of Park, where the shift is stuck apparently permanently, albeit it safely, in the driveway.
5 Comments
once upon a time a car named joey blew up on the highway in between tucson and pheonix on hwy 10 - i bought beater bud who’s alternator died 150 miles after I purchased it, in the dark and in the thick of the mountains - that car nickle and dimed me all the way home to chicago - just to stamp it’s feet in the chicago winter beater bud would ignite little bonfires in its carburator - back in the old days when you knew where the carburators were. This car had a multitude of problems until i painted it with daisy’s and let it get trambled in a derby - the car after that i never named because i hated it but when i sold it to my brother for a sum of which he never paid, it’s wheels fell off and it went pidgeon toed
My geek is taking the Focus in for the umpteenth time to deal with a little problem that it was recalled for about three years ago.
They don’t seem to be able to fix the engineering flaw in the original, though later models do not have this problem, or so we’ve been told.
Sometimes I think going back to the horse and buggy might not be such a bad idea.
Then I think about mucking out the stalls.
Good heavens, Karen. You should write a long post about your cars, both named and unnamed. I’m almost afraid to ask, but what kind of car do you have now and does it have a name?
Shine On,
Lill
Elisheva, I hate horses, so I’m not up for horses and buggies, unless the buggies are solar powered. My Durango has a flaw also. The bushings in the front end wear out and have to be replaced more often than they should be. It was fine when it was under warranty, but now it’s getting old and I’m looking for a smaller car. Hmm, what year Focus had the problem?
Shine On,
Lill
your right this would make a great post wouldn’t it ?
I drive a little compact chevy now and it has no name because they were supposed to go to my kids — we bought 2 cars not knowing what the first ex would do to provide vehicles for the kids - i thought i should be prepared as he wasn’t on the fast track to making a decent living either ( thus to pay less support ) therefore how would he provide cars - needless to say each kid has a vehicle that were formerly his - one has a zillion miles on and scares me - my son uses it once a week to come here to do his laundry - ha! otherwise he rides his bike - and prefers that - god bless his earthy soul - the other drives a lincoln town car of all things and I told her father he has to provide the gas for that beast - and it is beasty and also scares me because of the mere expense to fill the tank and how seemingly she goes through gas - yet if i had to commute her i’d never have a life
my hope is that i can use her beast and my current car as a trade in for something a bit more condusive to the dog and hauling a college kid forth and back, I am determined that she not have a car on campus
not sure what her father thinks about all of that
I never named my car but affectionately called my husband’s car the silver fox, until he became my ex
ha!!
hey happy earth day
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