I’ve been having a couple of issues with my car, recently. For some reason, when you turn the ignition, if it doesn’t start the first time, it won’t the second, or third, or fourth…you basically have to sit back for half an hour and then try again. If I’d had the time and money I would have taken it into the dealership and had it looked at, but I’m nothing if not a procrastinator (I think – I’ll have to give it some more thought later), so I just left it. As a workaround, I just developed a specific combination of hand/foot moves that usually did the trick of making sure the car started on the first key-turn.
Obviously (to me, now), the ignition problem was merely a symptom of bigger problems, and these came home to roost last Monday. I was making my second trip of the day from downtown Houston back to home in Katy (some 30 miles) when the car seemed to lose power. I stomped on the gas, but the car just gave one last wheeze, before cutting the power and coasting gently to a stop. Luckily, I was taking the back roads rather than just getting on the freeways (trusting the wife’s new Garmin GPS rather than my instincts), so I wasn’t in the middle of traffic, which would have been more problematic as no-one here slows down for anything (except maybe to gawk at an accident – that they possibly caused themselves by driving while talking on their mobile phone). After a couple of attempts at my magic tap-dance and hand-jive combination, I gave up, swore a lot, swore some more, and then pushed the car down a side-street and into a parking lot, swearing as I went.
One of the joys of Amex Platinum membership is that they give you free(-ish) roadside assistance. So I whipped out my card, called the Concierge (I know – they’re great. Really.) and within a couple of minutes on the phone (and after confirming that I was in a ‘safe’ place, and didn’t need anything else [hotel reservation? flowers sent to the wife as an apology for getting home late?]) they had arranged for a tow-truck to come and take care of me.
Disappointingly, however, it turns out that Amex don’t actually have their own fleet of gold-plated recovery vehicles chauffeured by liveried mechanics who talk like Alfred in Batman. Instead, they subcontract out to whatever grease-monkey with his own tow-truck they can find, who’s willing to come out at 11pm on a Monday night. About 45 minutes later Jo(s)e Lunchpail duly turned up – with his wife/girlfriend/’lover’ in the cab. Maybe he was mid-way through taking her on a date. In his tow truck (nice).  There’s a man who clearly knows how to show a woman a good time; although I doubt they’ll be canoodling in the back seat, what with it being a flat-bed and all…
Anyway, he tried jump-starting it, which obviously didn’t work (there was no problem with the battery – I’d been sat there listening to XM radio – which, incidentally, has gone right downhill since the merger with Sirius – whilst I was waiting for him to turn up), and then announced that he’d have to tow me somewhere. As there was no way the car was going to make it anywhere under its own power, I opted to get towed to the dealership, which was about halfway home. We got to the dealership around midnight. I had the tow-truck driver drop the car in the service lane, and left my keys in the mailbox with a note to my regular ‘service technician’.
Because Amex only cover the first $50 of a call-out (which is normally enough to cover a jump-start – as it has with Louse’s car twice this year already), I had to fork out the remainder of the $110 towing fee myself. The tow-truck driver then announced that he didn’t take credit cards (even though the form he made me sign had checkboxes for all of the major credit cards). He offered to take me to an ATM (I assume cash machine, and not the sexual practice), but handily I had $65 on me (unusually – I’m like the Queen – I don’t carry money), so I gave him the $60 in cash. I asked him if he could drop me home (about another 15 miles up the road), but he replied “Uh, no, we’re not allowed to take passengers”, while stuffing my cash into his greasy pocket, and climbing back into his cab with his date (so much for the no passengers rule!), no doubt happy that he could now afford to buy her dinner (probably at a taco stand…), and driving off into the night. Dammit. I should have gotten him to drive me to an ATM near my house.
So there I was, alone, at closed car dealership on the I-10, 15 miles from home, with $5 in my pocket. I tried calling home but the answerphone picked it up. I left a message saying that if I wasn’t home in the morning to send out a search party, and set of hitch-hiking along the feeder road. Obviously none of the very few cars on the service road fancied picking up a seriously-pissed-off-looking guy, so I resigned myself to walking. Two intersections later, to add insult to injury, the tow-truck driver passed me, apparently going my way anyway. If I had a rock I would have thrown it.
After four or five miles I’d had enough. It was cold, and my feet were killing me. Thankfully I was within hobbling distance of a hotel, so I went in and asked them if they could order me a taxi, even though I wasn’t a guest (my backup plan was to just get a room and stay there). They were happy to oblige, and half an hour later she turned up. I noted happily as I climbed in that the taxi driver took credit cards, otherwise I would have had to resort to asking her to take me as far as $5 dollars would get me (which would have probably been to the end of the hotel parking lot, what with the after midnight surcharge and all…). Still, 10 minutes and $20 later I finally got home (at 1:30).
The car was at the shop for four days before they looked at it, and after a day of poking around they found some burnt-out wires under the carpet, and a short in the fuel pump system (which is about the last thing you really want shorting, unless you fancy rocket propulsion). Thankfully the extended warranty covered the fuel pump and the diagnostics, which was the bulk of the cost, leaving me to pick up (only!) a $250 charge for miscellaneous wires (at that price I’m guessing they’ve used gold-plated HDMI cables…). Still, at least I’m back on the road again. And not before time, as I’m driving the 300 miles down to Baton Rouge again on Monday, and I don’t fancy the towing fee back from there. Especially if Amex send out the same guy and I end up sitting in my car on the back of the flatbed whilst he and his latest date check in to a motor lodge on my nickel!
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