Did you ever have car trouble at a particularly inconvenient time?
Questions asked and answered for my daughters
Over the years, I have had several vehicles, and some have had their share of recurring issues. The phrase, “car trouble,” sounds like I should write about a story related to a situation I was forced into by my vehicle versus one I caused myself!
I definitely have plenty of stories that fit the description of my car giving me trouble, and for a long time, every time I drove, I didn’t know if my car would start again when I turned it off. The time I recall the most is when my car decided to turn itself off, which led to a very nerve-racking situation.
I was driving down a road in the city of Reynoldsburg, Ohio in my Ford Escort car, and I came to a red light. The road was 5 lanes wide… 2 in either direction and a turn lane in the middle. I was in the left lane of one side. The light turned green. My car turned off. WTH. I wasn’t thinking that stopping, waiting with the brake, then pressing the gas to go would ever be a problem, but it was.
This may not be as big of a deal nowadays, as it was then. Now, I would pull out my cell phone and make a phone call or two after cussing up a storm. Then, there were no cell phones, and I wasn’t lucky enough to have a car phone in the 1990s. Most likely, I still swore up a storm!
I did have a few quarters, and I noticed a Dairy Queen nearby with a blue phone logo sign on one side. I left the car “parked” in the middle of the road on the stop line with the flasher lights on, where luckily, other cars could drive around me easily. I saw a pay phone mounted on the outside of the building, and I called home. As I was wrapping up the call, I saw a police car drive by and begin to slow down by my car.
I quickly hung up the phone and ran to the police car. I don’t remember how the conversation went, as it was all a blur, but he offered to help me. The officer’s car had a set of bars mounted to the front bumper designed to help with situations just like this… he was going to push my car out of the way with his car.
So, there we went. My car in neutral as the police officer pushed me, while I steered us into the closest parking lot off the road. I was embarrassed and really frustrated… now, I had to wait.
If I remember right, my dad found me parked in the lot off the road and had a rope to tow me. We tied my car to his, and I drove in neutral, while riding the brake the whole way home.
In the year 2020s, there are good reasons why I have a small, secret sigh of relief when my vehicle engine starts after the new “engine auto” shuts down the engine temporarily, like my Mini Cooper does frequently by design. While it may save some gas, I would like having the engine on ALL the time for that peace of mind.
But then again, I do like the engine off when I’m stopped with the convertible top down and enjoying the open air ride in a natural peace of quiet.
