Nic and Dadda

For the last several months, my car has been making a pretty loud sound. Naturally I was concerned, but considering I was out of work at the time, what could I do about it? I didn’t have the money to get it fixed. Finally, in March, though I was still without a full time job, I had done enough free lance work to take the car in to the shop.

I normally go to South Main Auto in Blacksburg. They are generally considered to be over-priced, but they usually do good work and all my previous maintenance records were already in their system. So, off I went. I explained the loud noise and that the “check engine” light was on. They didn’t even test drive it to hear the sound. They hooked up their computer to my car and said it was the catalytic converter and that would be $320 for a complete fuel injection cleaning.

What a load of crap. Biggest waste of $320. It didn’t do a darn thing - the car was just as noisy as ever AND the check engine light didn’t go off. That was all the money I had for car repairs (they wanted to charge me $200 to change spark plugs, but I did it myself for about $30), so I couldn’t take it back to get the real problem fixed.

Then in late March I was offered that job at Virginia Tech and started in mid-April. After building up a couple of paychecks and doing some more free lance work, I was able to take the car back in on Friday. I took it to a different shop - Auto Repair Specialist. Pretty original name, don’t you think?

Before taking the car in, I did extensive research on the Web looking for others whose cars had the same symtoms as mine; loud noise and vibrations that worsened the faster you went, but got quieter during right turns. The verdict … wheel bearings. Apparently, these are pretty important - something about holding the wheel onto the axel?

So, I took it to the new shop and explained with the confidence of an amateur grease monkey that I was 99 percent sure it was the wheel bearing. I ruled out tire balance because the steering wheel was not vibrating (been there, done that), and I ruled out an alignment because the car wasn’t pulling to either side and the tread wear was even on all four tires (been there, done that).

The guys nodded at me and said they’d check it out, but it sounded to them like it was indeed the wheel bearing - probably on the right side. I nodded somberly as well, basically conveying that I, myself, would fix the problem, but I am far too busy with my office job and besides, I’d much rather support local businesses in these tough economic times. They humored me, fixed my car and then took my $421.

But, I’m not complaining because my car is fixed and it is whisper quiet again! Well, that might be a stretch, but relatively speaking, anything would be quieter than it was before. You think I’m kidding, but even Nic would point out that, “Daddy, your car is loud. You need to take it to the ‘chanic!”

Thankfully, I got the car fixed in time for our day trip to Winchester to see my uncle, aunt and cousins, especially Megan, who graduated from high school on Friday. I will write a separate blog post about our awesome day in Winchester. We packed a TON of fun into the day.

So, wrapping up … South Main Auto, bad; Auto Repair Specialist, good; Bank account, empty; Car, fixed; Nic and Daddy, very tired.

(PS - It’s late and I didn’t feel like spell-checking so sue me.)