Monday Morning Update

[bookofmirrors]

Well, after some fabulous talks last night with acid0philus and lunenoire, a chat with elorie, and a serious talk with walkingbear that went way way better than I allowed myself to imagine, I actually got a few hours of sleep. I'm now up way earlier than usual, so I can go take my car in to get worked on. For the sake of pointless posterity, here are the the things I want them to deal with.

It needs an oil change. (Read as, it's overdue for an oil change. Again.)

The brakes need fixed/replaced/whatever it is they do to make them work after I've been driving the car for any length of time.

There's something wrong with the exhaust system. When I'm idling, I can smell the car in a rather unpleasant way.

The dash rattles. This may be secondary to them fixing the radio last time. It started roughly at the same time.

I want to A/C charged or whatever it is one does to make sure it doesn't go out on me unexpectedly in this weather.

And, last but not least, I've noticed something else recently. My car is doing what POS cars do, which is start to shake uncontrollably at high speeds. Except that 70+ isn't a high speed around here, and I'd like it to stop doing that at ANY speed. I know for a fact that this car has a governor, and that it kicks in (to the best of my recollection) at 107 mph. And back when I pushed it to that limit, it was smooth as silk. By God, my car BETTER not be turning into a POS, even if it has crossed the 100K mile mark.

Oh, and for good measure, I'll let them know I drove through a SHITLOAD of water last night in the rain. I was seriously worried the car was gonna stall out. It was pretty fucking deep. I got home OK, I just wanna make sure there are no lasting ill effects.

OK, now that I've bored all of you, I'm off!

Comments

[zydee.livejournal.com]

Wow, big list! What kind of car is it?

I think the only thing wrong with the Minx is that the dash's wooden panelling is kind of curling at the edges in this heat. I just noticed it yesterday.

Cas

[bookofmirrors.livejournal.com]

2000 Chevy Cavalier Z24, which I bought new before I moved down here. It just turned over 100K miles a week or two ago. Mostly, it's actually in good shape. I'm VERY hard on car brakes, and have to get them replaced fairly frequently. Today, they pretty much overhauled everything on them - he said they weren't street legal at this point, which I pretty much expected. They couldn't find anything wrong with the exhaust system, although I think they sprayed the inside of my car with something to mask the smell, or maybe it was related to something else, 'cause I don't smell it anymore. The rattle, of course, wasn't as loud when they drove it (well, I was driving), and the guy said it would probably take a couple of hours to find/fix the problem, so I opted to live with the noise. They checked out the A/C and made sure all the fluids and such were good, and I had to get new tires for the shaking. About $1300 on my dad's credit card. I hope he realizes how grateful I am...

[fey-touched.livejournal.com]

Could be the alignment causing the shaking. My car is currently out of alignment and is doing the shimmy dance at speeds above 65 mph. My last car had a bent frame that caused it to constantly go out of alignment, so I'm very familiar with how it feels. It can cause warping to your tires and brake system if it goes on for too long, so it is worth getting checked out.

[bookofmirrors.livejournal.com]

Apparently, it was a problem with the tires, so probably related to the brake system, like you said. I now have 3 new tires (one was just replaced last November), and things are much smoother. :)

Re: The car...

[bookofmirrors.livejournal.com]

Let me get back to you on that one... I have to set up a time to meet someone I very much want/need to talk to, so I'm gonna work with his schedule as much as possible. Believe it or not, I've seen you in that capacity more recently, so he gets top billing. :) I'd love to get together... evenings, as of Friday, are gonna be out for me, though, and not sure what my schedule's gonna be this week...