Up In Smoke

Unfortunately this post has nothing to do with the Cheech and Chong movie of the same name. Instead this is the story of the expensive car repair(s).

Yesterday about 1 o'clock Amanda called me at work freaking out a bit. It seems her car had died. It was leaking engine coolant like a siv (sic?) and make a very odd noise when running. I left work and drove out to meet her. She wanted to call AAA and have it towed but i got her card out of my wallet and it was expired by like 4 days. Convienant i know. So she tried using her mom's account (her mom is a cosigner on the car and thus a partial owner) and they told her that her mom had to be there. So AAA was useless.

When i got there we started it and i decided to drive it to the shop. Bad idea. we got about 5 miles maybe a bit more and the car started bellowing smoke. I made a U-turn into a parking lot and that is where we left it. We thought we might be able to get the shop to tow it if they had a truck (it was only another mile or so away) so we got in my car to drive over there.

We get about half a mile and guess what? My car starts bellowing smoke. Seriously. Both effin cars in a 20 minute period. I pull over open the hood and gag and the amount of smoke. Look under the car, big old puddle. No clue what it is but it certinly doesnt look good.

I get on the phone to Mazda road side assistance and she calls her friend Tim the mechanic. Tim drives out looks at my car, basically says "that's not good" but can't do anything because it's an RX-8 and they are weird under the hood (rotary engine). Mazda sets up a tow and i stand around waiting. Tim takes amanda to a rental company and gets a car. nice thing was he got it for 15 bucks less a day, they waved all the random fees, and they looked past the whole "Amanda is only 22" thing.

She sets up a tow while im getting towed. Her car ends up at Lakeland collission, mine at Fred Vincent Mazda. I sit in their waiting room until she picks me up.

So it was a fun day.