Car Talk
I love the show “Car Talk”
on NPR. This is not because I am
into cars or know about cars or even care about cars that much because I’m not
and I don’t and I never have been.
But you don’t have to be
into cars to enjoy listening to Tom and Ray Magliozzi (otherwise known as “Click”
and “Clack”) diagnose car trouble on the radio. Those guys are hilarious and it’s amazing how much advice
they can give people over the phone.
Tuning in to their show is like listening to Abbott and Costello solve
mysteries while blindfolded, and really, who wouldn’t like that? My favorite part is where the people
who call in try to mimic the sound that their car is making. There are some brave and talented souls
out there.
Just because I don’t love
cars in general doesn’t mean I don’t love my
car. My car is a 2005 Honda
Civic Hybrid named Heidi. She was my first new car to purchase by myself and I
approached that very serious and adult decision with all the maturity and
expertise of a first grader choosing a retirement plan. Without doing any research or shopping
around at all, I drove to the Honda dealership and bought a car.
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| Heidi when she was shiny and new |
See, I had decided that I
wanted to save the world and I was going to do that by purchasing a
hybrid. There weren’t a lot of
hybrid options in my price range back in 2005. I was pretty much choosing between the Toyota Prius and the
Honda Civic, and I thought the Prius “looked weird” so I went with the
Civic. (Seriously, I now spend
more time comparing toothpaste brands than I did shopping for a new
vehicle.) Luckily, my extreme
naivety didn’t get me into too much trouble at the dealership because there
just wasn’t a lot of room to wheel and deal. I wanted a Civic Hybrid, and that’s what I got. The only real choice I had to make was
the color. (I went with “Shoreline
Mist Metallic” and I’ve never regretted it.)
At some point during the
process of putting myself in debt, the salesman explained to me how the “Integrated
Motor Assist” system worked and mentioned that a new battery pack would cost
$8,000. But at my look of panic,
he quickly reassured me that it was guaranteed for 80,000 miles and said I’d
probably be driving something new by then anyway. For some reason that seemed like a perfectly reasonable
prediction, so I nodded and continued signing my paycheck away.
Junk in My Trunk
Heidi is a good little
car. Despite her dings and dents
(for some reason people really like to run into her) and my husband’s grumbling
that she has no pick-up on the highway (she does get up to speed eventually
though, says the ticket he got in Italy, Texas), she generally gets me where I
want to go with few complaints. But
when Heidi turned six years old, that big $8,000 battery pack in the trunk
died. (!!!) The good news was that these days those
batteries only cost about $4,000 (yea?) and the even better news was that Heidi
only had 78,272 miles on her so the repair was covered under warranty. (Yea!)
After being told that she
was “good to go”, we were back on the road together, singing along to the radio
and laughing about the bullet we dodged and things were smooth sailing… for 17
months. And then the IMA system
died again. This time it was NOT covered by warranty, but the nice man
at Howdy Honda got the company to pay for MOST of the new battery due to “the
circumstances”. (The “circumstances”
were that a battery that in theory should have lasted another 80,000 miles only
lasted 16,000.)
So… after ANOTHER new
battery pack was installed, we were back on the road again, though more cautiously
this time, with the radio volume on low and very little singing at all. And yet, STILL something is not
right. Heidi’s dashboard just
keeps lighting up with bright orange symbols of disaster. I fear the end may be near. But... it’s not fair… she’s so young.
Give It to Me Straight, Doc
I wish I could call the
guys at Car Talk and ask them to help me figure out what’s really wrong with my
little car. But I can’t. Because 1) after 35 years on the air,
they retired last month, and 2) that’s not how mechanics do things
anymore. During none of the occasions
that I have taken Heidi to the shop have I had to describe or mimic or act out
her problems. All I do is point to
the orange light on the dash and they connect a little doo-dad to the computer
and read a code and fix what the code says to fix. I hate it. It
is so backwards seeming to me, so impersonal. I guess I should be thankful that we have such modern
conveniences when it comes to diagnosing these expensive pieces of our lives,
but I miss the intuition, the guessing, the exploratory surgery. After the new barrage of lights came
on, I asked my guy at Honda, “When they replaced the IMA, did they check out
the rest of the car?” He said, “No,
there were no other codes.” Well…
ok. But maybe you should have
anyway.
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| "I ate a red candle I found on the bathtub and my belly hurts." |
I can’t help thinking
about my dog. He’s a hybrid too,
though we’re not exactly sure of the make and model. Sometimes I wish Uno could talk so that he could tell me
what’s wrong when he doesn’t feel good.
But he can’t, so I have to make my best guess. And I like the fact that when I take him to the vet and give
my amateur opinion of the problem, my awesome veterinarian checks out the whole dog instead of just the one body
part that seems to be the trouble.
If I take him in for an itchy left ear, Doc looks in the right one
too. If I take him in for a sore
back leg, Doc examines all of his legs and joints. It just makes sense!
I know that computers run
our lives now—my dog already had a chip inside him (which kind of freaks me out
if I think about it too much)—and I know that sometimes it would be easier if I
could just push a button and find out what my pup’s symptoms mean, but I am NOT
ready for the “Integrated Doggy Assist” system to come along and take the place
of my vet’s forty years of expertise and know-how.
 |
| Yeah, I drew that. |
Down the Road
I’m not sure what’s in
store for my little Heidi. We’ll
probably keep making repairs on her for a while longer, begrudgingly, rather
than shop for something new. And
when we do go shopping, it will not be for another hybrid. My husband is fed up with them, and I
can’t really blame him. His 2010
Volkswagon Jetta TDI gets better gas mileage than my car AND has power. Who knew? (Oh, yeah, he did, because he actually researched his
vehicle choices.)
As for the dog, we’ve made
the investment for the long haul, though we know there is going to be some body
work in our future. I just wish
those legs came with a warranty.
