More about the Acura

Remember all the car problems I'd been having? Remember how I said no way it could be the distributor, and I was willing to put some high stakes against myself that it wasn't the distributor? Guess what?

Well, it was more than that.

I took the car in to Goodyear a few days ago. For $90, they did a diagnostic of the entire car. They called me back with a small list of problems, but no matter how small the list was, it was pretty substantial for my wallet.

The major thing causing the oil leak: the gaskets around the area had broken. They had to be redone. They pulled off the distributor cap, and found that the coil that's inside it was shredding itself. It was shedding like a dog in summer. The mechanic pulled out clumps of it to show me. As well, he told me that my fuel lines were filthy, and the belts were cracked.

Like I said a short list, but one that my wallet would not appreciate much.

I got it all fixed for $1200, plus tax. I would have done it myself, but the work on it required more skill than what I knew I had.

When I got the car back, I fired it up, and he roared like a beast. It was a very sweet sound. The acceleration had improved, and overall, the car felt much better. Plus, what was really nice was that the "Check engine" light wasn't on anymore. Major props there!

Well, today the poor guy got towed. I got up early this morning to go to work to finish up some major projects, and I walk out to the parking lot. As I was walking out there, the fact that the tow truck was still in the area left kind of an ominous feeling in me, but I figured it was just paranoia setting in. I continued walking out to the parking lot, to find that my car was gone!

I called Pat, and he gave me a ride out to the pen where they keep the towed cars. Sure enough, mine was in there (it had occurred to me that the car might have been stolen). Now I had to figure out why it was in there. I knew the parking tag was there, and it had been out all day, so the rule that it had to be moved once every 48 hours didn't come into effect either. I asked the attendant why my car was towed. "No tag." Obviously, it had to have fallen. There was no way that the tag wasn't in the window.

Guess where the tag was? Over the weekend, I had taken that tag off to replace it with a different one so I could park closer. In turn, I placed the tag in a small cubby-hole in the car. The tag was sitting right there where I had left it four days ago. Why it hadn't gotten towed before, I don't really know. But I was not fortunate enough to catch it in time, so I owed $90 to the towing company.

I'm just dumb sometimes, ya know? I sure you do...