On Monday we did a little yard clean up. Clipping dead stuff, raking leaves, etc. We filled up a couple of our garbage cans with yard waste, so I sent Megan and Jenna to take it to the green recycle place in Lindon. They loaded up the truck and off they went.
Half hour later I got a call from Megan. I had a had time understanding her. She was pretty upset. The truck had died and she couldn’t get it started, and she was stuck off to the side of the road on the freeway overpass. I told her not to panic, that I would be there in 10-12 minutes.
Car problems, argh. About a year ago we had a similar experience with the truck not starting when we were at the dentist’s office. You can read about that SUPER FUNNY experience here. It has been running fine, but didn’t pass inspection in November until we bought a new handle (due to that lovely dentist’s office experience) and a new emergency brake.
So it was $500 bucks in repairs so that the dumb thing would pass the safety inspection. I was ready to just let it go then, as I have been several other times through the years, like when we replaced the clutch about 5 years ago. But, it has run like a champ for many many miles.
But not that day. I got in the suburban and hurried down to meet her. When I pulled up, there was a nice man in his car parked in front of them. He had helped them push the truck over to the side of the road, and then said he would wait there until their parents came. What a nice man. Ryan got there at the same time as I did. Seems she had called dad first and he left work a bit early to come to the rescue. But it took both of us to help out. Me, because I drive the suburban. Him, because he got to drive the truck as I towed it back home. Megan got to drive the Kia home, and once we had the tow rope hooked up, she took off.
I have never towed a car before. Not super fun. Ryan had never driven a car being towed before. Also not super fun. We had an open phone conversation going the whole time, commenting on when we needed to slow down and stop, etc. The tow-ee is driving VERY close to the tow-er, and ther is a risk of being rear ended if you aren’t careful. Well, I am a careful driver, and we went pretty slow. The 21 minutes it took to get home felt much longer.
We got the truck home, breathed a sigh of relief, and then Ryan did some investigating to see if he could figure out what was wrong. His best guess is a cracked engine block (I think…help me out and correct me here, Ryan, if you are reading this) and that’s not something that would be cheap to repair. We haven’t done anything about it, haven’t taken it anywhere to see if it’s something else that could be fixed, yet. Maybe we will. I don’t know.
It will be sad to say goodbye to that truck. We bought that truck the first year we were married. Before we had kids, before we had a house, before we had anything, really.
We used to cram a car seat in the middle seat and take Cole on outings in that truck.
Both Cole and Megan have learned to drive in that car, and learned the valuable skill of driving a manual transmission. Everyone should learn that!
It has hauled countless truckloads of mulch, grass clippings, garage sale finds, tress and plants, and the list goes on.
No, it’s not much to look at, that’s for sure.
But it is 24 years old, after all.
We aren’t exactly sure how many miles are on it.
Funny thing about the odometer.
I don’t know if you can read it, but that first number is between the 5 and the 6. Some years ago the first number started turning with the other numbers, so instead of 175K it said we had 475K or something like that. So we don’t really know how many miles it has driven, but let’s just say it’s a lot. Over 250,000, I would think. That’s a lot of miles.
Since we aren’t driving it and don’t know if we will ever drive it again, I cancelled our insurance on that vehicle. That’s a savings of $26 a month, right there.
Not the most efficient way to save a few dollars.
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