Saturday, January 8, 2011

In one hand and out the other

On Wednesday, I took time off from work to travel to El Cajon in order to pick-up my mother's remains and the dozen death certificates I paid for. Then, I disposed of her car by selling it to a local wrecking yard for $500. My boss seemed relieved when I told him I don't have to go to El Cajon anymore. I don't remember telling him I still need to travel to upstate New York in the spring in order to bury her ashes at her request. He left me a "deepest sympathies" card on my chair at lunch on Friday. In the AM, he shared a story of his mother's pancreatitus with me and a co-worker.

While driving home to Orange County on Friday night going south on the 405 freeway, my head was compiling the list of things I needed to get done over the weekend when a rapidly repeating bell tone alerted me to the "Service Needed - Stabilitrak" icon lit up on my dashboard. What a way to start a weekend.

After I got home, I checked the web to see how bad the problem could be and found these horror stories of other Equinox owners who said their car wouldn't even start after this service light came on for them. Even though I couldn't make an appointment because the problem occurred after the service department at Guaranty Chevrolet closed at 6PM, I knew after reading other peoples experiences that I must get this problem fix immediately. I mean, I live in Southern California and I can't be without my car.

I arrived at about 8:15AM on Saturday morning without an appointment and Paul wrote up the work order and seeing that the sky looked as though it was going to rain, I said I'd wait for my car. I got bored watching football on tv in their waiting room (not a fan), so I checked out a few of the cars they had in their showroom to kill time. After that, I went and talked to Paul to see where my car was in the process of being repaired.

After waiting about 45 minutes, the mechanic determined that the problem ended up being the failure of the EGR valve (which was kind of no surprise because many of the electronic components in engines these days are interconnected), and they had the kit on hand to fix my '07 Equinox. About a total of two hours waiting and four hundred-something dollars later, my car was fixed, washed (which I didn't ask for), and my keys were handed back to me with a smile.

Money - in one hand and out the other.

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