Mercury is in Retrograde, But Toyota is Doing Fine
I’m certain under different circumstances I would find humor in this. A few posts back I described the failures occurring simultaneously at both my host server and at Live Journal. aeonsbeyond kindly pointed out that Mercury was in retrograde again. Ordinarily I don’t place much credence in the effect of the planets on my life, but when Mercury goes into retrograde, all hell breaks loose with computers, TVs and other electronics. It is always after some major technical mishap that someone points out that it’s that time again.
The day after that post, I drove my recently purchased car down to visit my dad. I pulled off Interstate 5 at my dad’s exit and proceeded to the gas station to fill up. The car, which normally drives quite smoothly, seemed to be chugging and shaking a little. I looked in my rearview mirror and noticed there was enough white fog pouring out of the tailpipe to shoot a Bon Jovi video. I parked the car, got out and tasted the water dripping from the tailpipe (which you shouldn’t do, but it’s a fast way to diagnose the suspected problem.) The water tasted sweet, which confirmed my worst fears. The car had blown another head gasket. The second in a month.
One week after buying the car from an asshole on craigslist who failed to mention it had a blown head gasket, I shelled out $800 to get the gaskets replaced. Now, in less than 300 miles, the car had blown another one. Since this is an unusual thing to happen, especially with such frequency, this means my car has a warped block, or a tiny hairline crack somewhere deep enough in a cylinder that even the mechanic couldn’t find it the last time. Either way I’m fucked.
I am now going to spend $1200 to have a rebuilt engine put into the car. The new engine has a one year warranty, which is better than the handshake the asshole who sold the car to me gave me. And no, I bought the car As-Is, and have no recourse, other than to trash him on craigslist. (He is a small time car dealer out of his house.)
The punchline? My new car is a Mercury.