Saturday - September 01, 2012

serendipitous bad luck

I ought to write this like one of those Fortunately / Unfortunately stories you used to read in grade school, but I can’t be bothered. The old Saturn slipped a cog or something this morning, leaving me stranded right in the middle of a busy local highway intersection. The transmission just ceased working. So I whipped out my cellphone, which I had had the presence of mind to bring along for once, and dialed 911. As I was finishing the call the police drove up behind me; they’d seen me stuck in the intersection making the call, and put 1 and 1 together. I’m glad our cops can do that kind of basic math. So they used their patrol SUV to push my car to the side of the road, while calling a tow truck. Who was based right down the street, so he was there in just a couple minutes. And he towed me back to his shop, which also does transmission work. And then called Enterprise to get me a renter. And Enterprise was just down the street from him. Not only did they bring me a car in 3 minutes flat, I also got a discount on it because it’s from W---’s auto shop.

So I got my stuff from the trunk, put it in the brand new Chevy ... 1350 miles on it ... and drove home. Then I looked at what they’d rented me:

It’s a Chevy Spark. You sit straight up in it, like driving while on the toilet. It goes vrimm! vrimm! because the engine is too small to have any actual vroom! vroom! The speedometer is the only real gauge, and the cluster next to it is all digital, and the whole instrument pod goes up and down with the steering wheel. The seat adjusts a bit too, but I have to lift the wheel all the way up if I want to see the top third of the speedometer while I’m driving. Everything inside is colored flat black. I think it’s all plastic, but it’s so dark in there I can’t tell. It also has small, angular mirrors inside and out, which give it some really large blind spots. But even with an automatic transmission it’s supposed to get 65 Billion MPG or something. And if I rev the living daylights out of it, it sort of goes. I’m guessing it’s a 1.25 liter engine? Mighty tiny. Plus it only has one door handle, but it’s a four door car. Huh??

Compared to my tired old Saturn, it’s like riding on bicycle wheels. The tires just seem so much thinner, and the whole vehicle seems so much higher up and rolly. The ride is no better, not that my 15 year old SC2 was ever famous for a soft and quiet ride. But there is plenty of headroom!

... but holy cow ... my feet are even with the front wheels, and the back wheels could not be a whole 3 feet behind my butt. And that’s the end of the car! Back wheel, bumper. Period!!! There’s no car here at all!!!

So we’ll see about the Satrun. It may just be a shifter cable. I hope.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/01/2012 at 12:12 PM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life •  
• Comments (11) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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