One week ago, as I was driving through my town in an Oldsmobile with Dan, a man I had only met a few minutes before, I contemplated how odd life often is.
The short trip was a small chapter in a story that began last spring. In May, we took in our car, which is approaching the 200,000 mile mark, for what amounted to an overhaul — new tires, new timing belt, adjustment of all sorts of bits, and replacement of all sorts of fluids.
The transmission in that car had never worked quite right. It hesitated and rumbled and growled and strained. But as it had been doing this for 10 years, I didn’t consider it a major issue. So when the mechanic mentioned draining the transmission fluid, I didn’t give it a moment’s thought.
Apparently I should have. When we got the car back from the mechanic $2,000 later, the hesitating, rumbling, growling, and straining had increased considerably.
I called the mechanic. He asked if we’d been having any trouble with the transmission prior to the fluid flush. When I told him about its history, he said he wished he’d known that. He would have left it alone.
Great.
Three days and another $2,000 later, we had a new transmission. The problem was, however, that we still had the same hesitating, rumbling, growling, and straining. We drove to Tennessee for a week and had to deal with it the entire time whenever the car was going between 20 and 35 mph.
Back home, I took it to the mechanic. He made some adjustments and returned it to us again. It was better, but not perfect — about the way it had been before we had the old one drained.
I was tired of dealing with it, so I pretended to ignore it. My wife wasn’t quite as willing to let it go. We made it through the summer and most of the fall. Then I began to notice things getting worse again. The various noises and vibrations were on the increase.
Which brings us to last Thursday. We were on the way to work. I accelerated around a corner and heard a distinct rattling noise that I hadn’t heard before. My wife looked at me with a worried expression and asked what it was. I shrugged and turned the radio up louder to drown it out.
A few minutes later we heard it again. I couldn’t ignore it this time. I pulled over and looked under the car to see if we were dragging something — it was that loud. Now what?
We were close to work, so I dropped off my wife and headed home, hesitating, rumbling, growling, straining and, now, rattling the whole way. When I got to the mechanic’s, I asked if he had a loaner I could use — my wife was 20 miles away and I needed to pick her up. He pointed at another guy who was standing in the office and said, “He’s got the keys. Which one of you is going to walk?”
The other guy was Dan, who owns an auto body shop in the next town over. The loaner was an Oldsmobile. Dan said I could have it if I gave him a ride back to his shop. On the way, we noticed that the engine light was on and the windshield wipers didn’t work. Later I noticed the brakes were only half trying too.
I went to work without further adventures. When I called the mechanic in the evening, he said he’d driven it and heard the noise but hadn’t had a chance to figure it out yet.
Calling the mechanic each evening became routine.
Friday — “I won’t have it finished today. Oh, and can you bring the Oldsmobile back? We don’t want you driving it without windshield wipers. We’ll give you a minivan.”
Saturday — “We’re working on it. We want to get this thing fixed once for all. It won’t cost you a thing.”
Monday — “We’re replacing a solenoid. I’ve got my trans guy working on it, but he might not get it done until later. Would tomorrow be OK?”
Tuesday — “I’ve got good news and bad news. The transmission is fixed but while we were changing your oil (I’d asked them to do that too), we noticed that the harmonic balancer is shot.”
We tend to keep our cars around a long time, and while I’m not very knowledgeable about cars, I was surprised that there was a part I hadn’t had replaced or fixed at some point or other. Being a skeptic by nature, it crossed my mind that he’d just made this up so he could charge me for working on my transmission. It was going to cost me $360 to replace.
I mean really, a “harmonic balancer”? Couldn’t you come up with a better name than that?
He explained that it’s a part that’s metal on the outside and metal on the inside but with rubber in between, and that the rubber on the one in my car had crumbled. I asked how he could know this if it was encased in metal. He said my belts were out of alignment.
I know. I could have researched on the internet and found out if such a thing existed and whether or not it had anything to do with my belts.
Instead I sighed and told him to go ahead. I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t trust anybody, and my mechanic is one of the people I’ve chosen to trust. The way I see it, life is basically messy. Whether my harmonic balancer is broken and needs replacing or whether my mechanic is making stuff up amounts, pretty much, to the same thing — this is an imperfect world, and I’ve learned to accept imperfection as the default mode.
He called on Wednesday afternoon and said my car was ready. I drove the minivan over, paid my bill and headed out to do a few errands. The transmission does seem to be working much better. I heard one little growl, but nothing I would describe as a hesitation, rumble, strain, or rattle.
I was a little depressed about the $360, but then it occurred to me … That’s a small price to pay to be in tune with the universe — or whatever it is a harmonic balancer does for me.
