The Albatross

I have an 8 year old (2003) Sebring LX . . . it's in nice shape for 125,000 miles. I was actually thinking of keeping it for the forseeable future. I had a few pennies and dimes in the jar saved up so I thought I'd do some preventive maintenance on it to get it up to snuff and reliable. So I took it to this place to get the timing belt done, and a few other repairs (leaky valve cover, tire rotate/balance, oil change, coolant flush, etc.). ANYWAY . . . $715 was what I paid (timing belt is a labor-intensive job) - and this price was right (Chrysler wanted BIGGER bucks - I think like $850 solely for the timing belt - forget the valve cover, et. al.).

So . . . I took the car in on Tuesday. I get the car back (Tuesday evening) and immediately noticed a rumble/vibration which is vibrating (noisily) the whole car . . . rearview mirror and everything. So I took it back and had them check the motor mounts. Since they had to remove 1 or more of them to get to the timing belt. They said they couldn't find anything wrong. Whatever - I'll "try" to live with it.

Anyway . . . as the week progresses, I'm noticing that my power "everything" seems to be losing gusto. Power windows, locks, blinker, etc. So this morning I go out to the garage and fire her up. She gave me a few *rear* *rear* *rear* *rear* and then *vroooom*! I was a little disturbed that it didn't start up right off - this was the first time my blue baby EVER hesitated. So I drove out to the edge of my development, and thought, "man, I had better try again - something isn't right" . . . I put it in park, turned the key off and waited; and then tried to crank again. *crickets*

So . . . that explains why everything "power" was slowing down this week. No juice.

I called the garage, and they sent some lackey down to jump my car. The jump worked and I was going to drive it to the garage to have them "fix" my preventive maintenance (can you imagine?). Well, the car was crapping out on the way because again - no juice to tell the onboard computer how to feed the gasoline or whatever the hell it does. So the guy (who was in tow) jumped out, and rigged up the suitcase-battery charger and left it rigged up so that I could get to the shop. He simply laid the hood over it.

Well . . . around about 30 or 35 miles per hour later, the hood FLEW UP . . . and hit my windshield.

So . . . now I'm REALLY pissed.

Long stories short, he bungied it this time, and I drove on. The hood is noticeably damaged, the windshield is fine. I don't know yet if the quarter panels (fenders?) are damaged from the hood opening up too far - but I do think there is "some" damage - just unsure of the extent.

So my preventive maintenance turned into an albatross. The car ran "perfect" before I took it in - literally perfect. Now I have body work to do, a bad motor mount somwhere, and a non-working alternator or something.

Anyway, when the car didn't start, I figured I'd work from home. But when the guy came to jump the car - I drove it to the garage and made him drop me off at work (the garage is closer to work than home) . . . didn't want to sit at home fuming about this.

So now I'm like . . . may be time to buy sooner than I expected. I don't know that I can live with the monster that has become my car.

When I explained it all to the garage . . . they said that they would be looking into things and getting in touch with me. As far as I'm concerned, I hope they created a restore point because they need to press the Windows System restore button back to about Monday. So they are in my debt.

Wife will pick me up after work tonight. I have the old timing belt it in the trunk. BTW, did I mention it's in perfect shape? That's the ass-kicker of this whole thing. Needless to say, don't page me out tonight - I will not be fit for duty.