Re: Rep Retirement Lodge 136: Again?
Took the train up to Dracut to meet up with my family to celebrate my brother and niece's birthdays. My parents had driven up much earlier in the day to bring their car to a mechanic up there. There was a light (it may have been the check engine light) that had been on for a while and the car wouldn't pass inspection till it got fixed. So the mechanic looked at it and told him it would be about $1800 to fix, my dad was like "The car is 11 years old with over 100K miles, not sure if I want to do that now." He's telling me this when he picked me up at that train station. The car was running....OK at that point. He was thinking of checking with another mechanic, etc, just to try and get it fixed enough to get the inspection sticker to give him more time to decide what to do (buy a new one, a used one, etc). I tell him that since I'm going to Toronto on Sunday for 4 days, why don't they take my car to have, just to be safe. OK, so then we're at my brother's house and my brother's BIL is there - awesome guy. He's a sales manager at at Toyota dealership (I bought my car there - he gave me the family deal, etc). Tells my dad to bring the car up to his place on Monday, he'll have his people look at it, maybe give him a loaner if needed.
So, time to say good night and head home. I was going to drive their car and we were going to my place so we were going a different way. We're in the car about 3 minutes I start hearing a grinding. They're talking, they don't hear it.I hear it again as I turn onto a state highway road - this road hugs the Merrimack River, it's single lane each way, but it's windy and dark and at the time there was a steady drizzle. All of a sudden the grinding gets ridiculously loud, freaks us all out. I'm losing power when I put my foot on the gas. Pull over to the side, park it. Noise still getting louder. So, I shut the car off and put the hazards on. Call my brother (who interestingly enough was driving down to my parents' house that night to stay over as he left this morning to go catch the Sox in Pittsburgh). Thankfully he hadn't left yet and his BIL was still there. I called AAA and we were going to have the car towed to my brother's house. His BIL said he would send a truck to pick it up there to bring to his dealership this morning. Thankfully, it only took about 15 minutes for the tow truck to show up. BIL's wife had come and brought the van so my parents were sitting in there while my brother and I waited with the tow truck guy. BIL had called his peeps at the dealership and asks if the driver can take the car that night to the dealership in Nashua, NH. Thankfully I have AAA Plus that comes with 100 free miles in towing and New Hampshire was close, so that's what he did. And my brother drove us all home. What a major drag and it was a little frightening. I'm just glad I was with them and glad that whatever happened to it happened before we got on the highway. My mother thinks the mechanic that looked at the car did something (not on purpose - like maybe he left something uncapped or dropped something, etc).
I think the car is toast, as does my dad. At least they have my car use next week while I'm gone.