Hotrod

No, I haven't hopped up my car. Just the opposite. My poor little Camry is heading for the big junkyard in the sky.

I was driving the other day & noticed the temperature gauge was way up there. Not quite in the red 'it's gonna blow' section, but inching closer & closer. Luckily, I remembered Mom's little green Datsun (Anybody remember those?). We were out & about one hot summer day when Mom turned the heater on. Full blast.

Obviously, she'd lost her mind.

Then she explained that the car was getting too hot, and if you turned on the heater, it would suck the extra heat out of the engine. Of course, then all the hot air ends up blowing in your daughter's face, but she didn't care about that. All she was worried about was her precious Datsun.

So I turned on the heater & cranked the fan up full blast. The needle dropped right back to normal.

Thank you, Mom.

I told The Man, & he said the thermostat was probably going out. Unfortunately, that's not the only thing wrong with my little jewel. It's not exactly on it's last leg, or wheel, as the case may be, but it's old & worn out. The biggest thing wrong with it, besides the thermostat, is the speedometer. It doesn't work. Not that big a deal, but you're supposed to put in a new timing belt or chain or whatever it has every so many thousand miles & now I have no idea if it's time, past time, I've got some time, etc. Plus I just moved into one of the biggest speed traps in Lincoln County.

At least the gas gauge works. It gets good gas mileage. Well, I'm supposing it does, but I don't know for sure, not being able to tell how many miles I get on a tank any more what with the speedometer not working & all. It used to get about 40 miles a gallon.

Besides that, there's a whole list of minor annoyances. Most of it's just irritating, not exactly dangerous mechanical problems. Its not going to blow up or anything. The tires are showing some wear. The dome light doesn't work, & neither do the console lights that illuminate the climate control & radio area. There's also something wrong with the radio. The preset buttons don't work. Well, sometimes they do, but sometimes they don't. That wouldn't be too bad if the frequency up & down switch worked, but that doesn't either. You need a screwdriver to pry up the hood. If you open the trunk after it's rained, even if it's been a week or more, water drips down on your arm, your head, & everything in the trunk.

Oh, & you have to dump in a quart of oil every time you fill the tank.

So anyway, The Man decided the thermostat is the last straw. He's going to find me another car. Probably something old & cheap that he can work on himself. Thank God we moved out of that money sucking house up on the hill & can actually afford to look for another car. Otherwise I'd be looking forward to driving the riding mower to work.