Car Troubles

For the whole month of March, our service engine soon light was on.  We took it to Auto Zone to see what the code is. It could have been 1 out of 4 issues, the first one being the gas cap isn't screwed on tight enough. It's hard to get our car to the shop when it is our only car. Nathan has been very busy with interviewing and finishing up writing his thesis, we kind of just ignored the car. The plan was to get it fixed before we went to Utah for Spring Break but that didn't happen.

By the time we got home, the car's fan sounded pretty loud to me and Nathan promised he would get it in the shop that week.  I went over to Carol's house on Thursday afternoon to put my quilt blocks together. The whole time I kept thinking that I should just ask her to help me take the car to the shop, since Nate had the cars. Looking back I think it was more inspiration then just me thinking.  Carol was more then willing to help. By the time I got the the shop, my car was overheating. The temperature was in the red and nothing was blowing out of the heater. 

The shop was a little understaffed that week and said that might not look at it until the next day (Friday). Hannah had an overnight EEG scheduled for the Monday in Utah. I was hoping that I would get the car back by Saturday but Carol noticed that they aren't open on Saturdays. She kindly offered us her car since they have three and her car was all ready to go to Utah anyways. I am truly amazed and thankful for her generosity. My car is very important to me and I don't think I would be able to let someone else borrow it for that long.

The shop called and had pretty bad news. My radiator was leaking and my in tank gasket was also leaking so antifreeze was mixing with oil and messing up the hoses. Or at least something like that since I really don't know much about cars.  Bottom line it was bad and expensive ($1300). I'm hoping that this car which is a 2003 and has 120,000 miles on it will last us at least two more years especially with all the work we are putting into it now.

The trip went well and I'll post about it soon. Just as a follow up, I was pretty sure that at this point we have fixed the major areas in the car so nothing major could go wrong.  When just last Wednesday, the service engine soon light came on and I wanted to pull my hair out. Since Nathan had Thursday morning open, he took the car in. The same code came up as before. This time it was our gas tank cap gasket was missing/broken, so for $16 and only 1 1/2 of Nathan's wait time we have the car all set and ready to go. I just fine it interesting that I'm going out to Utah for Hannah's MRI on Monday and we get car problems the Wednesday before.