yesterday it was nine degrees and sunny when i went to leave the house.
i do not consider this to be especially cold. my car started right up, but then it wouldn't shift out of second.
more to the point, the stickshift wouldn't move at all and since i was parked nose-in on an uphill slope up against a curb and with the car in gear, it wasn't going anywhere. depressing the clutch made no difference since the stickshift wasn't moving, no way, no how.
so the nice flatbed driver wanted me to just ease it into neutral so he could roll it up onto the truck.
i did not think he understood the problem.
he did not think i knew how to work an automobile.
after a little while he came to a better understanding and concluded that we had to skid the car up onto the flatbed.
two hours and some money later i was sitting in the waiting room at my mechanic, and the technician came in to ask me what the problem was. apparently he had simply driven the car into the bay and had no idea what was supposed to be wrong.
bad news: we have no idea what the problem was.
good news: there no longer appears to be a problem.
the prospect of that happening again for no particular reason looms kind of large in my imagination, though. as a single person with one car living WAY outta town, it's not a casual thing if i can't move my car.
i'm hoping for the best, but i have parked nose out facing downslope and in neutral, with the brake set HARD. it's not the most optimally secure way to park, but it will do in a pinch.
i don't DARE put it in my garage.
1 comment:
I've never had much of a feel for cars, except that mechanical things don't really get on with me. And that transmissions are expensive.
Post a Comment