FourBux

Game over - I lose

Regardless of the culture from which we hail, there are a few things that tie us together as humans, common threads if you would, that bind us into the adaptable, creative species that we are:

A mother’s touch.

The taste of a good meal.

Money. (I’ll also say maybe beads that one can exchange for other goods and services.)

And that sinking feeling, deep in your gut, that you get when you’re trying to speed across multiple lanes of traffic, you stomp on the gas, only to have the engine stall. You know what I mean. That feeling is closely linked to the warm, wet feeling in your lap as you try to get the car started again before four lanes of oncoming traffic goes all Frogger on your ass.

We have had my lovely wife’s car, the Malibu, in the shop, continuously, since last Wednesday. When we dropped it off, it was stuttering and dying when she applied the gas, usually at the most inopportune moment, such as when merging onto the freeway, or making a left turn across traffic, etc. The problem seems obvious: something is wrong with the fuel delivery system. Whether that’s the fuel filter, or the pump, or a clogged line, or whatever, I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re looking at.

The mechanics and I have a little game we play. They call me up, tell me the car is fixed, and when we get over there to pick it up it won’t start. Or it starts up fine, and then runs until we get to the intersection. Or, our favorite, they call us up and say it won’t stall on them, so they can’t test it. So if we could, just pick it up and bring it back when it’s acting up.

Since when did the world of auto repair become such a crapshoot? When I am having car problems to the point of having to give it to someone else to fix, it’s a pretty safe bet that I don’t know what’s wrong, or how to fix it. Isn’t that what I pay them for? Some of my 65 bucks an hour goes for installation of the parts, but some of it goes towards their experience and service knowledge, right?

It’s like going to the doctor and having him ask “Do you have appendicitis?” right off the bat. How am I supposed to know? What I do know is that it hurts when I do this. You tell me what it means. I think my mechanic likes to pretend he’s House, from that doctor show of the same name. The one where Hugh Laurie plays the brilliant doctor whose cases are always the absolute least-likely diagnosis. Except where House’s patients were bitten by some rare hybrid Tsetse fly, indigenous to one square mile in the southern part of Zambia, my mechanic’s diagnoses are more along the lines of blind guesses, in the hopes that something he’ll pull out of his butt will be correct.

“So, when was the last time you replaced your accelerator tensioner?”

“You mean the spring that pulls the gas pedal up while I push down on it? Never.”

“Yes, that’s the one. Sometimes those go out.”

“Uh huh. And if it did break, wouldn’t the gas pedal fall to the floor, accelerating the car until we couldn’t stop and crashed into something? Yeah, I don’t think that’s the problem.”

“Hmm, okay. Just be careful with that.”

“Will do. Have you checked the fuel filter, pump, lines, etc?”

“We’re working our way that direction.”

Working their way from where, I couldn’t tell you. Obviously it looks to be the gas pedal. I mean, that’s where you press to get the car to move, so why not start there? Or, I know, start at the gas tank door! That’s where the gas goes into the car at the first place, maybe the hole is faulty.

So far, they’ve replaced the entire EGR system (exhaust gas recirculation), the throttle body gasket, Lord knows what else.

I just hope this is one game that I don’t get the high score on.