How do you know when something is really broken?
What is the threshold that determines that this first-world problem needs fixing?
When I drove to work, it was 73 degrees outside. Yet the “auto” setting for my air conditioning blew hot air from the driver’s side vents and cold air from the passenger side’s vents. No one was sitting in the car except little old ( hot & flashy) me. Sitting in the driver’s seat.
I wasn’t happy. Surely, this mixed-up air conditioning meant my car was “broken” beyond repair (well, beyond the cost of repairs worthy of a vehicle nearly two decades old).
Meanwhile, I was staring at traffic through a crack in the windshield that formed a nice J just where my left eye would like to see clearly. I had a horn that wouldn’t blow, passenger doors that only unlocked and locked manually from inside the car, and an ignition that started my car only when it wanted. And the way it started (or hesitated to start) was my only indication that my car would randomly die while running.
If my car has a rough start, I’ve learned to turn it off and restart it. If I don’t, it has the tendency to force a restart by dying on its own sometimes before I moved out of my parked position, sometimes a mile down the road, without warning. If my car has a normal start, it purrs like a…
