Car Update

For those of you that are interested.....

First of all, my car is a 2002 VW Jetta 1.8T.... so not long out of warranty.... just over a year. Which is why I didn't have a mechanic. Up until now I just used the dealership because it was all regular maintenance and I wanted it all properly documented and dealt with.

The update is that I still don't have the car back! The guy at the local service center was really cool and very nice...but he couldn't actually repair the problem. He took a pretty decent educated guess as to what the problem was (the engine isn't circulating coolant...so he thought it was probably a burnt out or stuck thermostat sensor) but found that it would be a fairly labour intensive job so suggested I take it to someone that specializes in VW. Very professional of him to offer that up I thought.

So after a lot of rigmarole I got a friend to help out and get the car back into downtown to the new garage. Of course though, this specialist tells me that it's not just some sensor, it's a broken plastic doomahicky on my water pump. And no, you can't just replace the doomahicky....you have to replace the whole friggin water pump. $95!!! But at least the new water pump's doomahicky is metal so it won't break again down the road.

The kicker? It's about 4 hours labour! Ugh, so this just became a $500 job. Meh.

Plus I've had a rental car for 3 days. At least I used it for work meetings though so now I can write it off come tax season. Whew!

The big pain in the arse is that it had to happen this week....when I'm about to leave town for more than two weeks. And of course they couldn't get it done for yesterday, so now I can't pick it up. So I have to arrange for friends to help yet again....and get them to pick it up and park it someplace safe (hello Military parking!) until I get back. Argh! Thank God for good friends!!

What a saga!!