Wednesday, October 27, 2004
parked in jutland parade
my stupid commondore broke down on monday. i've been nursing the transmission for ages as it's been vibrating and slipping, but after driving down to get on the boat for the weekend, it only just made it home. i think i might have been a bit too optimistic trying to get to work on monday with it though...
fortunately i did get to work, the last 500 metres at about 5 kph, hazard lights on and traffic trying to avoid running into me (hit me hit me! i need the insurance!). anyway i just got it into the carpark and parked it somewhere i shouldn't and left it until later when the brain fog cleared and i could work out what to do with it.
a few hours later someone from our division turned up and gave me the keys to his car. he's on leave for a month and i'm minding his car. i'd completely forgotten about it. well that's sorted out how i get to and from work during the weeks. no idea how i'm going to get to the boat as i can't use it for anything unrelated to work, just getting to and from work. maybe i should just tell them i live somewhere else on weekends. i'll run it past the boss and see what he says anyway.
so after lunch when i was feeling a bit more switched on, i did a bit of a look around who would fix it for me, and booked it into one of the local repairers. $2400 for an exchange transmission. i thought that was a lot, but the last time it broke down (fortunately under warranty) it cost the insurance company $3000 for a complete rebuild (by another repairer). and it only lasted another 2 years anyway.
now, how do i get the damn thing over there. i had visions of attempting to drive it and breaking down in the middle of traffic. so i rang the nrma for my free tow :-) they said they had to send a dude out first to make sure it needed towing, and i said i was at work, gave them my number and told them to call me so i could be there.
next thing i get a call saying that the guy had been and gone, but couldn't do anything because i wasn't there. i replied that was probably because you didn't ring me like i asked! morons. take two. i get a call, get out there to find the guy cruising round the wrong carpark, no probls, i flag him down and take him to the car. he sits in it and drives it backwards and forwards about 2 feet. he thinks it's ok, i can hear the fucker slipping from here buddy, and i'm not a frikken mechanic. so i say ok. you follow me down to the repairers, if it breaks down, you can call the tow truck from wherever.
i had the luckiest run ever. when it's cold it works for a while (not a long while though) and as the oil warms up (or something i dunno, autos are black magic to me) it starts acting up. so i managed to run through the lights and corners and intersections without stopping. he thought it was a foregone conclusion and asked if it mucked up at all. maybe he couldn't hear it over the stereo, it was slipping heaps.
now to wait for the damn bill, and flog it off as fast as possible. frikken commodores. not buying another one. gonna get an old hq ute, or maybe an old valiant ute. when it breaks, fix it my damned self. as long as it'll fit me, 2 kids and surfboards, it'll do.
