I took on extra work over the last couple of weeks for the purpose of earning "extra" money. In order to do this, I had to demand my high-mileage car run some extra miles. It did so, valiantly, but not flawlessly.
One night on the way to work, we slid on bald front tires in a snowstorm through a rotary and crashed the side of the right wheel into a curb rather hard. The crash bent the tie rod, knocked the wheel out of alignment, and the wheel bearing worked itself loose as a result. I knew my car was wounded but asked it to continue the march. It did so, again, valiantly.
More snow - a lot of it - came down over the weekend and it became very difficult to get around. The brake warning light came on, terrible grinding sounds happened in stop and go traffic, the abs light flickered every time I passed over a snowy surface, my tires spun in every intersection and I slid all over the place on the highway. We were tempting fate at this point.
Yesterday, I had no choice but to bring the car into the shop. Turns out there was indeed a lot wrong with her - even more than I had suspected and been in denial about. Let's triage this, I said to the manager. What do we need to do to get out this door and down the road safely? Well, tighten the wheel bearing, replace the front tires, replace the rear brakes and calipers, do an alignment, and you're past due for an oil change. This took about six hours, cost about $1,400, and there were some complications. The alignment is still off because of a bent tie rod. That'll need to be replaced ASAP, he said. Because of the way the tire will wear.
Thank you, I said, staggering out the door with my key in hand.
It's a good thing I took on that extra work, eh? I would have been better off staying in bed.
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