Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Non-Travel Vacation

No big surprise, the day after a major snow storm, the travel options are a little vague.

Today, on my way to work, I was picking up speed just as my car started to make a wobbly, vibrating sound. It stopped when I slowed down, so I simply dropped into rush hour traffic and kept going.

Once I was at work, I called the car repair shop that has helped me out in the past and described the situation. I explained that it seemed like it was probably a balancing problem, simply made worse by the snow. And the guy on the phone agreed that that's what it sounded like.

So I made an appointment to take the car in - with the guess that it would take about 45 minutes, so I could do it over an extended lunch.

Then I got there. And an hour later the guy came out to say that they had gotten my tires balanced, but the reason it had taken so long was that they found I have 2 bent tire rims. Of course, since Subaru only made the rims on my car for about 2 model years, they would have to be ordered in - with arrival in about 3 to 5 weeks. (I won't tell you how much they will cost - and the "generic" version is almost the same price, so going that route doesn't really help.)

Oh. And they also found that my engine was basically completely out of oil. Which was a bit of a surprise, to say the least. So along with rotating and balancing my tires, they also proceeded to do a full oil change (or at least an "oil fill") as well as putting some dye into the system which - after about 75 miles of driving - should leak out and give them an idea of what part of my car is leaking.

To do all of this, I ended up taking a half vacation day, because we obviously went way beyond the lunch hour.

Do I know how to vacation, or what?

1 comment:

Robin said...

Snow days and time at the shop days...sucks to use those vacation days that way! Tim got an extra day with his folks but would have rather been home instead of worrying about flights (and the extra trip to Sioux Falls). Here's to not have many more impromptu days off.