BS: Car Woes/Comedies

Subject: BS: Car Woes/Comedies
From: Janie
Date: 05 Jul 11 - 08:42 PM

I never, ever, drop my car at my mechanic's without calling first.

Except I did today. Bad brake problems developed over the holiday weekend. Arranged for my son to meet me at the mechanic's early, before they open. Put my keys (including my house key, which I forgot to remove) in an envelop, dropped it in the mail slot with a note, and headed off for the 40 mile drive to work. Called the mechanic when I got to work and got a message saying they are on vacation and closed all week.

Now, I have an extra car key, but not a spare electronic fob to unlock the car. Know from experience that if I lock the car with the fob and unlock it with the key, the alarm sounds. Called a Subaru dealership. They aren't up to speed on 14 year old Subaru's, but said they thought if I relocked the car with the key and then unlocked it, the alarm would reset. If that didn't work, I could start the car and then stop it and that would reset the alarm.

Guess what. Relocking and unlocking reset nothing. Some anti-theft provision prevented the car from starting with the alarm blaring. some how or other, and I really couldn't tell you how, I managed to get the alarm to stop, but never could get the car to crank. Called Triple A. Unless they can talk to the mechanic to document I am not trying to make off without paying a bill, they can't touch it.

Pulling out this evening from the mechanic's lot in my teenager's 2000 Taurus, the battery light and the engine light come on, and the transmission freezes.

Enterprise Rent-a-Car, anyone?

Subject: RE: BS: Car Woes/Comedies
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 05 Jul 11 - 08:55 PM

At least you having "comedies" in the title seems to say you can see a funny side to this.

Not sure what else to say except I hope things get sorted quickly.

Subject: RE: BS: Car Woes/Comedies
From: Janie
Date: 05 Jul 11 - 09:07 PM

Well, it is funny in a Perils of Pauline sort of way.

The car alarm blared for 20 minutes before it finally got shut off through some magic combination of me holding my tongue right and saying the correct curses. I wasn't about to call 911 (emergency services) and tie them up with my stupidity when some one might have a real emergency. Still, I kept hoping some one would be alarmed enough to call the cops, who would then show up and tell me how to get my car started. .

The alarm alarmed no one but me.

Just life.

Subject: RE: BS: Car Woes/Comedies
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Jul 11 - 09:57 PM

There's a reason why I'm a bluesman... I know all to well what fixing yer junk on the side of the road is all about...

Guess the worst was back in '69 and my band had just played a gig up in DC and we owned a '49 Ford Panel truck to carry our equipment... It was about 2:00 in the am and we were heading back to Richmond when the radiator blew... Now I knew all the tricks including st5uffing banana peels in it but it was too far gone...

We were right about Lorton (40 miles south of DC) and that's where we stayed for the next 3 days... Luckily I was driving the truck but the rest of the band was following in Fuzzbat's old Chevy so we had transportation but were afraid to leave the ruck and come back and find all our shit missin'...

Had to have that radiator dipped & re-cored... Luckily, I always carrying tools...

Got to know that shoulder of I-95 real well... But this was a long time ago when cops didn't bother you fir this kinda stuff...

Three days and we were on our way...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Car Woes/Comedies
From: GUEST,Jim Dixon at the Webster WI library
Date: 06 Jul 11 - 01:36 PM

Here's a comic story you might appreciate. My 20+ year old son had a bicycle with a flat tire. He repaired the tire, but he didn't have a pump to pump it up. He threw the bike in the back seat of the car and drove to the nearest convenience-store/gas-station to use their pump. He pumped up the bike tire, then hopped on his bike and rode it home and forgot about the car.

My wife and I were away in our other car (car #1) at the time. We came home and noticed car #2 was not in its usual place, but that didn't alarm us; we figured our son was off someplace with it—no problem. Next morning, we noticed son was home in bed and still car #2 wasn't visible. Again, we weren't alarmed. We figured he had parked around the corner. He sometimes has to do that because he comes home late and all the parking spots on our block are filled.

Finally he woke up in mid-afternoon. (Common occurrence.) Conversation went like this:

"Where's the car?"

"I dunno. I didn't use it yesterday."

"But you were out when we got home."

"I used my bike."

Consternation. Puzzlement. Think, think, think. "Hey, I thought you had a flat."

"Yeah, I fixed that."

Puzzlement. More thinking. "But I thought you didn't have a pump. So, how did you fix it?"

"Well, I … (pause, ponder) … Oh, yeah, I guess I did use the car."

We got the car back, after it had been towed.

Subject: RE: BS: Car Woes/Comedies
From: Janie
Date: 06 Jul 11 - 08:53 PM

Love it!

Subject: RE: BS: Car Woes/Comedies
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Jul 11 - 09:20 PM

Janie, I am glad you are not driving with bad brakes, at least!:-)

I'll be back with a tale or two. My first husband and I had several; we were always driving OLD cars which needed work.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Car Woes/Comedies
From: keberoxu
Date: 10 Aug 18 - 06:28 PM

No comedy nor tragedy on my end. Just a little bit of a hiccup.

I have new-ish tires on the car, which is pretty old.
Of late, the local streets around my town have been
going through extensive re-surfacing.
It wreaks the kind of havoc, on tires and wheels,
that I associated with the end of winter when the potholes appear.

Suddenly one rear tire began flattening.
It's all fixed now. I hurried to the place where I bought the tires.
They graciously squeezed me in without an appointment.
They said that the tire "rim bead" -- or was it "bead rim"? --
was not properly sealed against the wheel rim,
and concurred when I described the lousy surface conditions
during the road repairs on local streets.

Thank goodness that was set right with the minimum amount of trouble.
But darn it, those street repairs ...

Subject: RE: BS: Car Woes/Comedies
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Aug 18 - 06:59 PM

If they fitted your tyre without checking that it was properly sealed, the least I'd do is avoid them like the plague from now on. You could have been killed!

Subject: RE: BS: Car Woes/Comedies
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Aug 18 - 03:14 AM

THere's a story of a holidaymaker from Liverpool who took his holiday in a tiny North wales village and was struck by the lack of friendliness of the locals who, he complained, never spoke to him
He was bemoaning this to the barman in the pub one night and was tole, "they're really a sociable lot here but you need to reach out to them yourself first, otherwise they will think you want to keep yourself to your self".
"How do you mean" said the visitor, "I make a point of saying good day when I meet them on the street"
"We'll, why not try int in our language, just say "yaki dar", that should do the trick
Next morning he left his accommodation and he spotted a man working ounder the bonnet of his car
"Yaki dar" he sang out brightly
"Fuck of you Taffy bastard, can't you see I'm busy", came the reply

A young lad picked up a girl at a dance and offered to drive her home
Hall way, they stopped in a country lane and began to kiss and fondle
"Will you get in the back seat" said the lad ?
"No" came the reply
They began fumbling around again and he said again, extremely frustrated "get in the back seat"
"No" she said again.
After another couple of attempts and rebuttals, he furiously threw the car into gear and drove her to her home where he stopped, stormed around the car, flung the passenger seat open and told the girl, now in tears, to get out - she did so.
As she walked up the path he shouted after her, "why wouldn't you get in the back seat?"
"I wanted to stay in front with you" came the tearful reply
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Car Woes/Comedies
From: Thompson
Date: 11 Aug 18 - 08:19 AM

In the days when I had a car, I had a small key for switching off the alarm if it sounded in error.

Subject: RE: BS: Car Woes/Comedies
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Aug 18 - 08:35 AM

The ignition key will do that.

Subject: RE: BS: Car Woes/Comedies
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Aug 19 - 01:58 PM

So I park at the friends' for whom I was catsitting, curbing my wheels properly as it's a steep hill, and there is a crunch and then my steering wheel locked. Which it often does for security- but it usually has wobble, and no crunch. So I play with the cat and when I come out, no movement, key won't turn, wheel won't turn- I try various things, then walk home. Ask for rides to everything that weekend, everybody has a trick... Press the brake, turn this way or that, nothing works. After 3 days my French friend offers to help...
And he *looks* at the car and the wheel turns, and all is fine.
I hate the French sometimes.
What was the trick?

Subject: RE: BS: Car Woes/Comedies
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Aug 19 - 09:25 AM

Hmmm... as in many technical things, "you gotta hold your mouth right"

Subject: RE: BS: Car Woes/Comedies
From: Charmion
Date: 16 Aug 19 - 09:29 AM

I had a similar experience with an unfamiliar Volkswagen, Mrrzy. The trick was to haul the steering wheel sharply to the right, a manoeuvre that apparently freed a latch thingy in the ignition.

The person who showed me was a Dutch tourist. I immediately developed a firm scunner against the Dutch that persisted for weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: Car Woes/Comedies
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Aug 19 - 11:21 AM

Tried that trick too. I think he just had French eyes.

Firm scunner, gotta use that phrase myself.