Car Woes Continue

Ugh, so frustrating! Not that I know where I would have gone had I had my car today, but it's just annoying and somewhat depressing knowing that I'm stuck here.

You may remember that just before I left on vacation I had car troubles. Overheating. Turned out to be a broken thingamajig on the water pump. (or at least that's what I had to believe it was!) Anyway, that got fixed up the day after I left, so a girlfriend picked my car up and parked it for me while I was gone. Yipeee!

Uh-huh. Fast forward to this Friday. I'm happily driving down the road on my way into town for dinner with the girls, and guess what? Fricking power steering stops working. Yes, this was mildly scary!! On Sooke Road, by Royal Roads...you know, where it's a busy 4 lane road. Argh.

So I managed to get into an empty left turn lane and get into a parking lot. Of course this time there would be no driving it to a garage. So, hello tow truck! Argh. Like I need this expense after being off work for 2 weeks (I don't get vacation pay, I'm self employed!). Alas, nothing I can do...but I don't trust that last place that had my car, so I had it taken to the VW dealership instead.

According to the car manual, the little light on the dashboard that lit up this time is the generator light. It indicates that there is a problem with either the generator belt or the alternator belt....either loose, broken, or slipped off. Joy!

DBF thinks it will be what he calls the serpentine belt....which I think is what they are calling the generator belt. He says this is the belt that controls most of the electric stuff....ie: the power steering! He figures the car was still running on the juice in the battery but that's not enough to run the steering or AC or things like that. Sounds like a good theory to me!!

Of course, VW was closed so I'm waiting for them to check it out tomorrow and let me know. I'm hoping for a loose or slipped belt of course, but I'm sure they will tell me it needs to be replaced....just cuz that's how things have been going for me lately. **crossing my fingers**

Side note: if it's a loose belt, I'm seriously going to consider blaming the mechanic that did the water pump because they told me that the reason it was such a tough job was because they had to remove the alternator to get at the thermostat. Interesting that only 5 days after I got it back, the alternator belt goes out......