Car Whoas, Oh How You Plagued Us

We had a difficult vehicle week. It started last Friday when Hubs came home without the frozen pizza that he said he was going to pick-up. Not a big deal, but why? "I had a brake line go out." Fantastic. We drove our little Tercel over to my brother's house to have him look at it. He's a mechanic by trade and bails us out on these issues. My brother was going to look at it on Saturday, but cold monsoon rains came through and he opted to nap his afternoon away instead. I stopped in after church on Sunday, helped my brother to check out exactly what seemed wrong and he had determined that our master cylinder had been the culprit. We stopped by the local car parts joint, ordered the master cylinder and waited for Monday to come.

Hubs ran K- and I to our drop off places. He ended up at my brother's place in the afternoon. Brother dear had the master cylinder all in and was ready to check out the success of his labor.

Nope. That wasn't it. Turns out, it was the brake line, it just didn't do what it was supposed to do in the way that it was supposed to do it. (And yes, that is the way that I generally speak.) Off to go buy brake line. He'll "stay up late and put it in."

Tuesday morning comes and I need to drive Hubs to his work 25 minutes away. We get into my car-- the new car-- and we have a light on. I drove as he looked the code up and it was the tire pressure sensor. We stopped in a parking lot for Hubs to check to make certain that all the tires were round and we decided to press onto the expressway exit that he needed for work. When he went to put air in the tires, he found that my front passenger tire was very low. We didn't know why, but I went ahead and drove him the rest of the way to work. When I dropped him off, I saw him bend down next to the car. Then he started laughing. It turns out that one of us managed to pick a big silver screw up in my tire. Ugh. We've had the car for 7 months. The tire isn't that old!

So there was Hubs, changing my tire in less than fantastic conditions. In the end, he was wet from the thighs down, dirty and cold. What a way for him to start work. Thankfully, he had brought extra clothes to go work on the car at my brother's house after work. He was wearing his Gortex pants, so no one would see his grubby duds. By the time I got K- to school, she was 45 minutes late. I had enough time to go home, gather lunch up and run.

I left work a half hour early to go get Hubs. It had been snowing and there is a salt shortage, shortage of plow trucks tending to the roads and I figured it would take extra time. Yup. A half hour drive took 1 full hour. It took 45 minutes to get to my brother's house. The car wasn't done. We left and went to get K-. I ended up driving for 2 hours and 45 minutes. I told Hubs that I could have driven half way to Chicago.

Wednesday came and Hubs had to be to work early. They had CPR re-certification and he needed to be there by 8 AM. We left at 7 AM and I was able to get both him and K- to their places on time, have an hour to run around home to tidy up, pack a lunch and run. I left work a half hour early again, but this time I was able to make it to him in a half hour. The car was finished once we reached my brother's house. The good news is that the brakes are fully functional again (good news anyhow, let alone with all the snow we've been getting) and that the engine light was a mis-installed air filter and not the expensive oxygen sensor that we thought. Bad news is that the battery died and the head gasket might be going. Wonderful.

So, I was still driving around with my tire hanging off the back of the RAV with a big fat screw still in it. My other brother works at Goodyear, called me in for tire rotation (they do it for free) and fixed my tire for me. Now I have a safe spare to use! Had the screw gone in differently or been a half inch over, he would have never been able to repair it.

We are so thankful that we've been able to make it through this crazy week. We've ended the week with two functioning cars back in the driveway. I consider that a major answer to prayer!