Small world, explained...
citabria goes into the gives all the details of her car going bad and the adventures getting it to a safe place after, suddenly, on the Cross-Westchester (I-287) in White Plains last night, lights started going off on her dash.
The Buick dealership we left it at called this morning to say that it was both the water pump and the serpentine belt tensioner. (And the belt, which ate itself.) The water pump problem was easy to spot but I didn't think to look at the belt until I was on the phone with her usual repair guy at her dealer and he suggested that as a cause. (In retrospect, with all the symptoms, that should have been my first guess, but I was still thinking about a hose failure.)
So, work needs to be done but she got it to a safe halt quickly enough so there shouldn't be any more hidden damage. And, because we were both driving our own cars back from her old place in NJ, we were still able to get home, albeit really late this morning. How to retrieve the car is up in the air, though.
The small world part, though, comes in when we finally got a guy out to tow her car.citabria is chatting with him and he grouses about how he's doing all these tow jobs and just thought there would be a few repo jobs. She says, hey, my fiancé's brother-in-law works in the repo division of GMAC, do you know him? She gives his name and the guy says, yeah, I do think I know him. We all get to the dealership and citabria tells me this so I get his name and who he works for and call my brother-in-law. Sure enough--they know each other...and do lots of business together.
The Buick dealership we left it at called this morning to say that it was both the water pump and the serpentine belt tensioner. (And the belt, which ate itself.) The water pump problem was easy to spot but I didn't think to look at the belt until I was on the phone with her usual repair guy at her dealer and he suggested that as a cause. (In retrospect, with all the symptoms, that should have been my first guess, but I was still thinking about a hose failure.)
So, work needs to be done but she got it to a safe halt quickly enough so there shouldn't be any more hidden damage. And, because we were both driving our own cars back from her old place in NJ, we were still able to get home, albeit really late this morning. How to retrieve the car is up in the air, though.
The small world part, though, comes in when we finally got a guy out to tow her car.citabria is chatting with him and he grouses about how he's doing all these tow jobs and just thought there would be a few repo jobs. She says, hey, my fiancé's brother-in-law works in the repo division of GMAC, do you know him? She gives his name and the guy says, yeah, I do think I know him. We all get to the dealership and citabria tells me this so I get his name and who he works for and call my brother-in-law. Sure enough--they know each other...and do lots of business together.