Car fall down, go boom.

When we last left off, I was quite content with both the explanation of why the car had been overheating. The car was running fine, and everything was good. At least, everything seemed to be going well.

On Saturday (6/19), we decided to make a trip up to the Great North Eastern Brewers Festival in Northampton, MA... which is about 48 miles North of Hartford. During the hour-long trip there, the car was running perfectly... the engine hummed and the thermostat needle never went above the mid-point. Everything seemed fine.

Fast forward three hours. Janet and I return to the car and start it up. The needle rises to the mid-point, but stays level. Since the needle tends to drop when it hits highway speeds, we weren't concerned and started off towards home. Somewhere near Springfield, a full 35 miles away from home, the needle rockets towards H. Oy. Either we pull off and let the bugger cool down, which will take a couple of hours... or we could keep on driving and risk damaging the car. We decided to take the third (and most uncomfortable) option: we cranked the heat so we could siphon some of the heat off of the engine and cool it down to a driveable level. The combination of driving at 65 MPH and blasting the heat was enough to keep the needle from hitting the H... though it did little to cool our tempers. We pulled into the house, killed the engine and popped the hood. Steam and hissing: the signs of general unhappiness eminated from the radiator, Janet and me.

Sunday morning we woke up and I puttered around with the radiator: I flushed the radiator, bled the air bubbles from the line and refilled the tank with the proper mix of coolant and water... and everything seemed to work fine. Janet piled into the car and we were off to run our weekend errands. By the time we made it two miles to the intersection of New Britain Ave and South Quaker, the needle was reaching for the H and white wisps of smoke started appearing from under the hood. We pulled into the parking lot behind Omni Comics and popped the hood. This was not good at all.

I decided to run into Omni to see if we had anything in our subscription box and while I was there, the store manager told me that the service shop at Pep Boys might be open. He gave me directions and I went back to the car to see if it would even start. It did, even though the engine was hot. Luck was with us and the needle stayed barely out of the red for the half-mile trek to Pep Boys. Their service station wasn't staffed for repair work since it was a Sunday, but I was able to pick up a Honda Civic repair guide... and we left for home to start diagnosing the problem.

With the help of the garden hose, the car cooled down quickly, and I was able to start going through the trouble-shooting checklist. I checked the fuses, and watched the car idle to see if the cooling fan kicked in. I pushed where I was supposed to push and I prodded where I was supposed to prod. The end result was that for a half of an hour, I waited for the car to start to overheat so I could figure out if it was the water pump or the thermostat, but the needle never rose beyond the midpoint. I decided to call Eddie's Evergreen Mobil Monday morning to get the car looked at.

When I left for work on Monday morning, the car was fine for the first 15 miles of the 17 mile drive. The needle hovered in the safe range, and all seemed fine. However, when I slowed down for some traffic, the needle went right into the red. I pulled in to witness steam pouring horribly out of the hood. Five minutes later, I was on the phone with Ricky at the service station, discussing the situation. He recommended that I get the car in as soon as possible, and that he would put in a new thermostat. I agreed that this was a prudent course of action and scheduled a 1:30 appointment.

At 1pm, I left the office and went down to the car. Time for the post over-heat check... check the pressure cap, add more water, look for any obvious cracks or leaks in the radiator. Everything looked fine. I sat down, inserted the key and turned the ignition.

Nothing happened.

Ok, something happened: the oil light (I checked the oil Sunday and it was fine), alternator light and the battery light all came on... which was interesting, as they had never come on before. The car wouldn't even turn over. It was dead. One quick call to GEICO insurance, and a tow truck was sent out to drag the car (and me) to Eddie's. Ricky had no idea what was wrong, but promised that he would call with an update Tuesday morning. In the meantime, he suggested that I get a rental car. So, I dialed 800-RENTACAR (Enterprise) and picked up a Dodge Neon for the duration of the repair time.

When I got home, I started to think about it. The overheating probably did some serious damage to the head gasket... and the car needed some pre-winter body work, a new paint job, new tires and a paint job. The Civic would cost me about $1500 in work over the next six months. So I started calculating the cost of a new car. Janet arrived home while I was looking through the phone book for new car dealers. I called one dealer near my office and talked to a sales rep. Within a few minutes, I was pre-approved for either a lease or a low-interest rate financing for a new car. It's now lunchtime on Tuesday... the Civic is still DOA and I have an appointment with the salesman at 4:30pm. Maybe by this time tomorrow, I'll be in in my own brand new car.