The Continuing Saga of Old Nole

As you thirteen loyal readers of MT.Net know, my car got smacked into three weeks ago, causing the hood to crumple and smashing the left headlight. The girl who did it is 21 years old and I knew would be strapped for the cash to fix it. With this in mind, I told her I didn’t care if she handled it through insurance or out of pocket, as long as I got my car fixed.

I took a few hours to get estimates for the repair, costing me money since get paid by the hour. Two estimates differed wildly, one of them being one-third more expensive. I faxed the low one over to the girl and waited for a response.

A day or so later, I get a call from her father, asking me if I’d mind having a neighbor of his do the work. Ok, I said, knowing how much $1800 can be to 21-year-old.

Big mistake.

His friend lives out in the boonies on the other side of Clayton. I had Kelly and Hallie meet me at work that Thursday so we could drop the car off at his house. It took forever to find it, not having been given good directions. By the time we got there, everyone was grouchy and hungry. Nevertheless, I put on a happy face.

The guy fixing it seemed nice and appeared competent. He told me things would be ready next week. I left him the keys and began to focus on our beach vacation, for which we were leaving in the morning.

Our vacation came and went. I called before we started home just to make sure it would be ready. He agreed to leave it for me at a place nearer our home so I wouldn’t have to trek back to Clayton.

We were met at the city limits by pouring rain. Tropical Storm Gaston was approaching. I drove the car back to our driveway. Then I contracted the nasty stomach virus going around, making Tuesday the first chance I had to look the Old Nole over.

The body work seems fine. But the paint clearly doesn’t match. There’s a visible bubble on the front fender. Also, the left headlight is either the wrong size for the car, or need to be thoroughly adjusted.

I called the girl’s father back Wednesday evening with my concerns. He brought up the car’s age, as if that has anything to do with it. I don’t want it good as new, I thought. I just want it the way it was before your daughter hit me.

Wednesday morning, another twist to the story began. As I was backing out of the driveway, I smelled the subtle smell of something burning. Then the car would not drive in ‘automatic.’ The Old Nole was reduced to gears 2nd, 4th, and R gears.

Great, I thought. One thing after another. A call to a local mechanic pegged the problem immediately: a fried transmission computer. This is apparently a common occurance in Hondas, from what mechanics have been telling me. It’s characterized by the speedometer going dead, the transmission shifting funny, and mysterious monkeys appearing in the dashboard lights. The cost for a new computer is $590, plus labor. Yowza.

I went out to the car to take a look at the transmission computer. Pulling up the floormat, I noticed water underneath. Whoa. Two days in 80+ degree heat and there’s water in my floorboard?

Then it was off to Durham to get a used transmission computer. Though technically they had closed at 5, the fantastic folks at City Auto Salvage stayed late to sell me the computer. I took it home and installed it in twenty minutes. Sweet.

But how did all that water get in the passenger floorboard side? Did that short out the computer, which sits just above the floor? Does my window leak that much, or is there some other, unseen source of the water?

So, my car still isn’t back to normal. The transmission problem is fixed, but I haven’t heard back about repainting it. I don’t mean to be a stickler, but I have too many things on my fix-it list already without having strangers add more to it.