Stupid Car Woes

Grrrr....well, happy Sunday to me. Meh.

So I pick my car up from downtown today (cuz I'm a good little girl and left it there after drinkin and stuff). Happily driving along...lalala...and the car bings at me...and an angry little red light comes on. Gah! It's the angry red temperature light....which leads me to look at the temperature gauge....which is all the way into the red and trying to go further. Shit.

Luckily I'm only about 4 blocks from a gas station, so I keep going (with crossed fingers that nothing explodes before I get there) and pull in. It's not a service station so no one to ask for help, so I get out my trusty manual (which was actually wedged in the glove box because I've NEVER needed the damn thing before). I look up the indicator light and yup, it's the Engine Coolant. Great. And it only takes special friggin VW fancy-schmancy coolant that you aren't supposed to fuck with. But, thank God, it says that you can use water in an emergency as long as you take it in and get it all flushed and fixed up as soon as possible.

So I pull over to the water hose, pop the hood, and note that the friggin coolant isn't empty. It's not even low. Gah!!! Which means that it's something else that is causing the coolant to overheat. Well great, it could be one of 20 things and I haven't a friggin clue what those could be.

As you all know, I live in the boonies. DBF is away so I can't call him. Friends I would normally call are all out of town. I'm pretty much screwed. So I opt to try to at least get somewhat closer to home so I can call a neighbor for a ride. Which in hindsight was somewhat stupid, because closer to home means farther away from the VW dealer. But all I could think was that I was gonna be stranded and it's Sunday so VW is closed anyway.

So I carry on towards home....but only make it about 2/3 the distance that I wanted to before my scary Check Engine light came on. The light that means PULL OVER NOW IDIOT. Fargh! So at least it was on a decent road that I could get out of the way, park properly and safely leave the car overnight. And thank God for cell phones so I could call neighbor Jen for a ride home.

Still haven't a fricken clue how I'm gonna get this thing in to be serviced, especially since I really have no way of getting in to town tomorrow. (Neighbor leaves for work at 6am, and the service place won't open til after 8 so it seems pointless to go in that early with absolutely no idea what I'm doing.)

At least DBF thinks it's just a heat sensor or maybe the rad fan, so I shouldn't HAVE to take it to VW. The good little Car Center not far from where I left it should be able to help. Whew...cuz the tow bill to VW would be crazy high. Let's hope DBF is right!!! And they can fix it without me having to be right there. (Wisely, I sent the spare keys with neighbor Jen so that won't be an issue.)

VERY INCONVENIENT seeings as I have appointments and stuff all over the place before I head to Halifax on Thursday. Stupid timing. Grrrrrrr. Happy friggin Sunday. Meh.