more car trouble

Post 40 of 90.

My 6 month old car died on the way to work today. While in the left lane on Ronald Reagan Highway, the engine just quit out of the blue.

I was going to call a tow truck, but decided to try turning it on, just to see. It started up, and everything seemed fine. I was going to shrug it off and go ahead to work, but then decided it would be better to go ahead and nurse it back to the dealership.

Sure enough, several miles later it died again.

It turns out the "Powertrain Control Module," the little electronic brain regulating the transmission, had died. There was nothing mechanically wrong with it, and just about any car made prior to 1980 or so would still be functioning perfectly well. Let's hear it for computer technology! Luckily, the car is still under warranty.

I had a car over ten years ago that had the same problem, and it behaved exactly the same way. The longer you drove it, the more frequently it would die, until you couldn't restart it at all unless you waited at least an hour. I remember nursing that car back to Bloomington, IN from a wedding in Brown County, and it must have died 15 times until I finally got back. Of course, the scumbags at the Chevy dealership in Bloomington saw fit to try and screw me over and rip me off, probably just because I was a "kid" and they felt they could get away with it. They managed to repair and charge me for everything except the actual problem.

It's a great relief to me that I'm no longer a babyface kid. I rarely face glaring instances of outright contempt and disrespect anymore. [knock on wood]

This car trouble has screwed up my plans to get the cat to the vet in the evening. I had to make up the time I missed from work this morning.