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Just needed to vent in text format after tonight.
It started last month, when I got in a fender bender. No one hurt, minimal (to me, at least) damage to both vehicles. Exchanged insurances, went on our ways, reported in the morning.
I chose not to go for the repairs as it was purely superficial damage, and not worth the 500 dollar deductible to me. What no one told me is that insurance companies will drop your comprehensive coverage altogether if you don't get repairs after any accident.
This plays in for me, because I am still making payments on my car, and my loan stipulates that if I don't maintain that coverage, they will get their own, and charge me for it.
About a week after all this was finally sorted out in my head, my check engine light came on, and I took the car to a shop to have it checked out. Fuel injector dead, and spark plug wire arcing through its insulation. So that was about $400 parts and labor out the window. Got it back last Monday. Last Friday, the light comes back on again on my way to work (1 hour one way commute, was half-way there).
Based on symptoms, it looks like either the catalytic converter or oxygen sensor, both of which will affect performance, but not cripple the car. So I was stressed, but dealing with that revelation.
Tonight, as I was coming down a hill on a highway, I noticed something in the road ahead of me, and had all of maybe 3 seconds to recognize it was something a lot bigger than my car could drive over. Looked to be a huge porcupine by the bristly outline.
Swerved to miss it, swung back into the lane but slid sideways because of my speed at the time (65mph, that highway, and was going downhill). This was about a mile from work. At about the 1/4 mile left mark, I started hearing a very disconcerting whumping sound., and pulled off into the alternate road into work. I had passed the thing with it on the driver side, passenger side never left the road, front passenger tire both flat and looking like it was falling off the wheel.
As I mentioned previously, I have a 1-hour, one-way commute to work. I work graveyard shift, and this is only Thursday, leaving me Friday still to work.
So here I sit, stuck at work until at least Saturday morning, pretty much broke after the fuel injector thing, with a flat tire and a really lousy two months behind me.
It started last month, when I got in a fender bender. No one hurt, minimal (to me, at least) damage to both vehicles. Exchanged insurances, went on our ways, reported in the morning.
I chose not to go for the repairs as it was purely superficial damage, and not worth the 500 dollar deductible to me. What no one told me is that insurance companies will drop your comprehensive coverage altogether if you don't get repairs after any accident.
This plays in for me, because I am still making payments on my car, and my loan stipulates that if I don't maintain that coverage, they will get their own, and charge me for it.
About a week after all this was finally sorted out in my head, my check engine light came on, and I took the car to a shop to have it checked out. Fuel injector dead, and spark plug wire arcing through its insulation. So that was about $400 parts and labor out the window. Got it back last Monday. Last Friday, the light comes back on again on my way to work (1 hour one way commute, was half-way there).
Based on symptoms, it looks like either the catalytic converter or oxygen sensor, both of which will affect performance, but not cripple the car. So I was stressed, but dealing with that revelation.
Tonight, as I was coming down a hill on a highway, I noticed something in the road ahead of me, and had all of maybe 3 seconds to recognize it was something a lot bigger than my car could drive over. Looked to be a huge porcupine by the bristly outline.
Swerved to miss it, swung back into the lane but slid sideways because of my speed at the time (65mph, that highway, and was going downhill). This was about a mile from work. At about the 1/4 mile left mark, I started hearing a very disconcerting whumping sound., and pulled off into the alternate road into work. I had passed the thing with it on the driver side, passenger side never left the road, front passenger tire both flat and looking like it was falling off the wheel.
As I mentioned previously, I have a 1-hour, one-way commute to work. I work graveyard shift, and this is only Thursday, leaving me Friday still to work.
So here I sit, stuck at work until at least Saturday morning, pretty much broke after the fuel injector thing, with a flat tire and a really lousy two months behind me.
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