A little whisper in the dark

Winter's coming, how do we know?

Well, one way of knowing is that the old cars in my social circle have all begun acting up within days of each other. I get a call on Sunday morning, hey, my car's dead, do you have a jumper cable so we can jumpstart the car? I duly locate a jumper cable, load up my car, put on my best RACQ (that's the local vehicle recovery people) face, and set out to rescue my friends. Turn the ignition key...... nothing.

What's the chances of two cars' batteries failing on the same morning? Take the chances of the average car's battery failing and square that. I don't have a specific number but I'd wager its microscopic. Two days later, yet another car fails, battery fault again......

Some kind of pattern going on here, maybe it's the weather. And we've not really seen the worst of winter yet. I'm having to put money into the car, now and then, just to keep it running. Since purchase, its required a new water pump, belt tensioner and battery, it still needs an engine mount, door switch, sorting of its aircon, there's a vacuum leak somewhere, and the timing's out by 7 degrees. I'm asked why I bought a car with so much problems, but let's be realistic - a 16 year old car with 208,000kms on the clock isn't going to be purring like one that's just rolled off the production line last month, but it sure wouldn't cost the same either. Keeping it running is going to cost a bit of money, a bit of time, and a bit of love now and then. Like relationships I suppose.

You neglect it, and it'll bite you back soon enough. Miss your 100,000km service, ignore the rising engine temps, and you'll be looking at a costy repair job. Miss your partner's birthday and you're looking at a big fence-mending job, too. So as time goes by, that little red rocket shows its problems, I fix them, it serves me, I learn its little idiosyncrasies, I don't crunch the gears that much now, and stall the car less. Demands attention still, and a oil change which I keep putting off.

But the car itself was an irony - I spent the better part of a month looking for a suitable car (by that I mean one that I can afford and isn't falling apart) sending out email, calling people, getting dicked around by sellers who pull out at the last minute, have all but given up, and then one of those emails I sent came back belatedly.

Some things happen when you least expect it. But try to be prepared for it, especially when it involves cars. What could go wrong anyway, right? (everything could, actually)

posted by Chung Leong @ 2:31 AM