Sometimes you have to take what’s available

Those of you who have been here for a while will be aware of the ongoing car saga I’ve been dealing with. In fact the last time I wrote about it was when I’d gone to a car dealer lot to have a look around when it was closed, only to be told by a mini-cop that what I was doing was ‘abnormal behaviour’. Cheek! She didn’t even see how abnormal my behaviour can get.

Roll on a week or two and I’m heading to Inverness to an appointment at the hospital there and Dearest Son has come along for the ride. This is how it turned out:

That’s hazard lights blinking, in a parking bay at the side of the A96 (a road from hell), in rush hour – don’t let the lack of cars on the road fool you. We had been driving along when, at a roundabout, the car just stopped. Dead. I managed to get it going again and we drove slowly along, then the engine heat went up QUICKLY and a big red STOP came on the dash. That was when I found the layby, thankfully. I pulled in and as we got out of the car I noticed what looked like either steam or smoke coming from under the bonnet. So I told Dearest Son to run!

I phoned the hospital to cancel the appointment. I then phoned the RAC – roadside rescue people if you don’t know. It costs extra with the insurance but when you have a 20 year old car, you need it. They have this thing now where you can watch on a map on your phone, where your knight is coming from and how long it will take him to reach you.

I think we waited about 90 mins. Do I mention full bladders at this point? No? Okay then.

He checked under the bonnet when I explained what had happened and he found oil in the coolant reservoir. There was no coolant even though I knew I’d topped it up in the last couple of weeks. In the previous 2 years I’d been trying to get a garage to find and fix the oil leak, a coolant leak had never been detected. Anyway, the suspected diagnosis was possible death of the head gasket. Would have to be confirmed but at that moment I had to decide whether I wanted him to tow us to a garage or home. I chose home.

The potential costs were looking like this:

Pay for someone to look at the car (£75 an hour), which would involve much taking apart of things.

Pay for the oil leak to be found and fixed

Replace the head gasket

Get the windows fixed as they haven’t opened in about 2 years

You see the problem? By the time you’ve paid for all of this, you’ve bought a new car. So I thought I’d try selling it for ‘spares or repair’ sort of thing.

Another problem: You see, in our street, which is a small cul-del-sac, we have 2 houses in particular, which have 3 vehicles each and room in their garden for 1. Then we have their visitors, one in particular who seems to think it fun to take the ONE space we use for our ONE car, which is right in front of our house so my husband doesn’t have to walk far to the car. Oh, some of the vehicles I mentioned are huge big minibus/people carrier/van things. So for us to dare add another vehicle to the mix, well parking is an issue. The one saving grace was that all this happened when one of the neighbours were away for a couple of weeks and their 3 huge vehicles went with them.

Anyway. I advertised the car. The only response I got was from a young man who said he’d like to come see it. I’ll shorten the story by saying he eventually came at 11pm, in the dark with a friend who had a disability of some sort – the kind where a mobile phone is seemingly attached to their hand and they are incapable of lifting their head anymore to look at you. At first I thought he was ignorant, then I thought ‘leave him alone Sharon, can’t you see the boy is ill’?

In our text conversation, I’d said the car would need to be towed. So of course, he jumps in and tried to start the engine. Curtains in the street twitched. He examined the engine by mobile phone torchlight. ‘Mmmm’, ‘Ahhh’, ‘just thinking how I can get it to the top of the road’. At this point, I should mention they appeared on foot, claiming they had a vehicle at the top of the road (assumably under an invisibility cloak), but they had no way of getting the car onto the back of it. You would think this would have been an important thing to sort given the description of the car but who am I to question genius?

‘Give me a day’, he said.

Well I gave him a day and a half and I have to say, at this point, my stress levels were high for a number of reasons. I needed the space the dead car was taking up and I did now have a ‘new’ car. Yes, we bought one so buckle up. I sent a text saying I needed to hear from him by a certain time or I was contacting the next person. I heard nothing so sadly – and it was very sadly, I had the car towed and scrapped. I got £50 for it.

The car we bought? It was the only one locally (bear in mind I’m on foot at this point – with what I think is plantar fasciitis and every step is painful), which we could afford. It is smaller, cheaper to tax and doesn’t feel like mine. (2 weeks at this point). I feel every bump, I had the garage check it out already, I feel something under the accelerator pedal but I’ve been assured it’s good to drive. I don’t feel good driving it. Yet.

The man we bought it from was interesting. An older gentleman, whose wife has early dementia and still lives with him at their home. He took us for a ride in the car and I quickly realised that my driving style is very, very different. I feel safe when I drive, for the most part.

I had a little drive in it and then bought it. There was a dent in the rear bumper and a crack on the opposite side which he said had happened in a car park. I suspect different. There were a couple of other minor things like he couldn’t find the logbook (which I needed to tax it), he had seat covers which he needed to find. Again, long story short, he came round to our house a few times to deliver these things as and when they were found! Then another message – I’ve found the roof bars, do you want them? The price was a new steering wheel cover for his new car!

So for now, at least, we are on the road in an albeit smaller car which has me nervous. We are lower down than I’m used to so I feel everything and after what happened in the old car, I’ve discovered I have no confidence in a car getting us anywhere. Hence, I’ve not driven out of town yet. I’m too scared to. Dearest Son has an appointment soon which will force me to drive it further and I’m dreading it. I feel so vulnerable in this small car which feels so alien to me. Will I ever get to that comfortable stage again? I don’t know to be honest.

I know what kind of car we want and I’m saving. It will take years as I don’t buy on finance – I’m very much ‘if I don’t have the money for it, we don’t buy it’ sort of person. But I’ll be honest, this past month has been very stressful and I don’t like cars at the best of times.

How long does it take to get used to a new car and more importantly, what kind of steering wheel cover do I send the previous owner?!