Five Times

Inspirational song: Baby, You Can Drive My Car (The Beatles)

This day did not go as planned. I got in my car, started to back out of the driveway, and everything went straight to hell right at that moment. When I pressed on the gas pedal to back into the street, the engine just revved weakly, and the car rolled backwards only as fast as the momentum from the downward slope of the driveway had built up in it. I looked down and saw the check engine light on. I put the car in drive, and it connected well enough to roll a full car length back up the driveway, and I tried the process again. Same result. On the second attempt, instead of going back into the driveway, I parked on the street, and ran inside, quite upset, and asked Mr S-P what happened to my car. He said it worked fine for him this morning, and looked at me like I was overreacting over what must surely be user error. (Which had the inevitable result of making me even more upset.)

Since he has been using it for the last month, he has put 4,000 miles on it. Considering in the five and a half years since I bought it, including driving it here from South Carolina, I have only ever put 55,000 miles on it total before last month, this disturbed me greatly. I have been moving from gently suggesting to commenting frequently to demanding NOW IS THE TIME that he should purchase his own car for this venture. When I offered mine to use, I seriously did not intend for it to go on this long. It was to find out whether he wanted to do this for longer than a week, and if he did, then he could buy a car to dedicate to it. It must say something about my personality, but it seriously skeeves me out knowing how many strangers have been in my car, and when I drive it (those three or four times I've had access to it in a month) after it's been used as a Lyft car, I feel like the residue from every single body it carried is still in there. It's especially bad when the outside is dirty. It makes me feel like I am personally covered in road grime, and each of those three times I got it, I took it to the car wash--and I even used the wand to clean every inch, rather than riding through the automatic wash. I spend way too much of my time thinking about having it professionally detailed on the inside as soon as I get it back, to cleanse it thoroughly and turn it back into my own car. I don't need to feel the lingering vibes from a parade of random strangers in my personal space.

We had to have my car towed to the Ford dealer. Thankfully we keep roadside assistance on our insurance. Sadly, we don't have rental car reimbursement on it, at least for repairs. If I'd been in an accident, then yeah, but not for this. While we were there, Mr S-P test drove a 2017 version of the same car, although a base model, sedan not hatchback. I'd like him to go ahead and get it tomorrow. I have places I need to be, and if my car isn't ready, I'll take that one to county assembly Saturday, with the four women I've promised to drive. I am fine with him getting this generation of the car. If he were looking at one as old as mine, neither of us would want it. There were about four years where the Focus and Fiesta transmissions had such a fatal flaw built into them that there is a class action lawsuit that has resulted in a major settlement due to all of us owners, and depending on how many times we've had to have the same thing fixed, there's quite a bit of cash due back. This is my FIFTH time with the same problem. It was worked on twice in Charleston, and twice already since we moved back here. This makes five times that the transmission forgot how to shift. Two of the repairs involved a reset of the brain, and twice it was in the shop for more than a week to have major components repaired. They see this so often that they keep the components in stock. That's bad. That's really major. I enjoy driving this car, but I really hate having to leave it for repairs so often. I hope the new one (if he gets it) is free from this defect.

I was too upset about this ruining my day to take any pictures. Sorry. Maybe I'll have a picture tomorrow, if there is a new to us car to show off.