I’m driving home from work yesterday and am approaching the busiest intersection on my commute home. I get into the left turn lane, when everything shuts off. I turned the ignition, and absolutely nothing happens. No lights, no clicking noises… total silence.
Meanwhile, people are honking behind me. I hastily wave them by and they give me “the look” as they pass while I dig for my cell phone.
I saw this coming. I should have pulled over when my radio went out about 2 miles back and my instrument panel started to flicker. But there I was, right at the intersection of Geddes and Huron Pkwy., stalled as a motherfucker with nowhere to push the car to get it out of the way.
I called AAA for a tow truck and I was “Priority 1” given my location, which I’m pretty sure doesn’t mean anything because it still took almost an hour for the tow truck to get there. They had me call 911, the first time I’ve had to do that in my entire life, to get a police car to sit behind me with it’s lights on since it was getting dark and I had no flashers since everything was dead.
I felt like an ass.
I told myself I’d continue to drive this car until it died. It died. I was stranded. I just put almost $2000 into getting something else repaired only two weeks ago. I’m looking at that more like a poker loss…. I made the right decision at the time, but it didn’t pay off in the end, because here I am about to put more money into it.
The tow truck guy said it was probably the alternator. I guess that’s only a few hundred dollars but like I said… how many more times do I have to resurrect it before I consider it “dead?”
My huge ass McDonalds gut tells me it’s time for a new one. The past few years I’ve been eyeing the Toyota Yaris, Chevrolet Cobalt, and Chevrolet Aveo (not the hatchbacks, those are ugly). I’ve narrowed it down to the Cobalt this morning, it’s a bit more than the others but is rated higher in safety.
Would you consider this dying? Or do I make this $200-$500 repair on a car with almost 200,000 miles hoping that in two more weeks the transmission doesn’t seize?
