We left the vanagon at Northwesty for over a week. We were supposed to be able to pick it up on Tuesday. We called Tuesday, then Wednesday, then Thursday. Finally on Friday we were told that all was complete. When we got to the shop at one o'clock the van was still up on the rack. We waited an hour... It was out for a test drive... We waited another hour... One of the coolant hoses had sprung a leak... I waited another two hours... Finally at closing time at 6:00 the van was ready.
Here are the receipts:
After ringing up another big credit card bill I drove it home. It seemed to drive just fine. But the bluetooth phone no longer worked properly. I could hear the caller but they couldn't hear me. Damn. Eventually, the stereo system gave out completely.
I took it to a friend's house, a master mechanic. We took out the stereo/bluetooth phone. Not surprisingly, the microphone had not been plugged in. Then we noticed that the cigarette lighter adapter was no longer hot. After a couple of hours, we found a male/female connected that had not been hooked up. We hooked them up, and the cigarette lighter had power.
We never did figure out why the stereo wouldn't work. The power lead was hot, but no sound. Very sad. I was depressed that night thinking this van would break down at every possible opportunity and every possible way.
Little did I know what was to come.
We drove it a few miles the next day, Sunday. In the course of less than an hour, it became virtually impossible to shift into reverse, first, or second. Clearly something was terribly wrong. I knew that the clutch had been fine, and that it didn't pop out of gear, so I figured the shift linkage must have fallen apart. We barely got it parked and waited 'til morning to drive back to Northwesty.
Monday morning we attempted to get the van into reverse so we could pull out of the parking space. Many attempts and lots of very bad words later, we were able to get it into the street. I drove it in third gear most of the way to Renton, even starting from dead stop on a hill at a light. The clutch got an unfortunate workout. So did my credit card.
The only good news is while it was undriveable, I was able to sand, prime, and repaint the few small rust spots under the window seals in back. It looks great, and the color matches perfectly. One small success.
Oh yeah, and the other really good news is that John has been an incredibly supportive throughout all of this. He has never once gotten upset with me or asked me to abandon this crazy idea. I'm retired, I have a wonderful partner, two beautiful dogs, and a great adventure ahead. Life just can't get any better.
Lesson number 6: I must always remember that I'm a very lucky man.
Here are the receipts:
After ringing up another big credit card bill I drove it home. It seemed to drive just fine. But the bluetooth phone no longer worked properly. I could hear the caller but they couldn't hear me. Damn. Eventually, the stereo system gave out completely.
I took it to a friend's house, a master mechanic. We took out the stereo/bluetooth phone. Not surprisingly, the microphone had not been plugged in. Then we noticed that the cigarette lighter adapter was no longer hot. After a couple of hours, we found a male/female connected that had not been hooked up. We hooked them up, and the cigarette lighter had power.
We never did figure out why the stereo wouldn't work. The power lead was hot, but no sound. Very sad. I was depressed that night thinking this van would break down at every possible opportunity and every possible way.
Little did I know what was to come.
We drove it a few miles the next day, Sunday. In the course of less than an hour, it became virtually impossible to shift into reverse, first, or second. Clearly something was terribly wrong. I knew that the clutch had been fine, and that it didn't pop out of gear, so I figured the shift linkage must have fallen apart. We barely got it parked and waited 'til morning to drive back to Northwesty.
Monday morning we attempted to get the van into reverse so we could pull out of the parking space. Many attempts and lots of very bad words later, we were able to get it into the street. I drove it in third gear most of the way to Renton, even starting from dead stop on a hill at a light. The clutch got an unfortunate workout. So did my credit card.
The only good news is while it was undriveable, I was able to sand, prime, and repaint the few small rust spots under the window seals in back. It looks great, and the color matches perfectly. One small success.
Oh yeah, and the other really good news is that John has been an incredibly supportive throughout all of this. He has never once gotten upset with me or asked me to abandon this crazy idea. I'm retired, I have a wonderful partner, two beautiful dogs, and a great adventure ahead. Life just can't get any better.
Lesson number 6: I must always remember that I'm a very lucky man.
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