Here Come the Comedown (depressing, very depressing)
Saturday morning around 8:20 I called the mechanic shop and he told me to bring it in if it'll drive. My car started working great! Then slow and shocky. Then good. Then rattling and feeling like it was going to die. Then back again! Good! Bad! Slow! Fine! With me shaking with nerves and thinking "wtfwtftwfwtfWTF" the whole way from how weird my transmission was acting. But I made it to the garage.
My mechanic's computer said the current "check engine" code came from something wrong with the oxygen sensor, not the message he got when the engine light turned on a week before or a message he's gotten before. He turned off the light and told me to drive around a bit to warm the transmission up and give him a call if the light turned back on. It turned on immediately and I called him to say so. While on the phone with him I started getting a strong engine smell with an undertone of exhaust. He said the sensor is why my transmission is going weird like it was, since the sensor helps tell the engine to start up. He told me he had Monday off but I could contact him Tuesday--I guessed they were full up on cars already that day (Saturday)--and when I asked said the oxygen sensor is about $250. He told me I should do my errands for the day and then go home, but the exhaust smell became so bad even with my window all the way open that I went straight home, parked, and walked around outside breathing deeply for ten minutes to try to clear my head.
I read very encouraging things about the oxygen sensor's tasks online--it does a lot, and its failure explains a lot of car problems I've been having--but when I called him this morning he asked if I really wanted to sink another $300-400 into this. From what I read online I'd hoped this would help the cylinder head/overheating problem abate, but he said it wouldn't at all. This new problem is a different problem; I'd still need to pay $2,500 on the cylinder head and top of the engine and I could still have my "check engine" light turning on. I just paid $107 a week ago to squeeze a little more life out of this car for two weeks to a month, and now I'm one month in on that.
I have a pain management appointment next Tuesday that the doctor's office absolutely refuses to do as a televisit. Taking an Uber would be $38 just one way, while mass transit there involves two Queens buses, one Long Island bus, and the Long Island Railroad, and the trip takes anywhere from an hour and forty-five minutes to over two hours depending on you hitting a lucky point on the schedules. The mass transit option would cost me $13.40 for the whole trip. This office is 12 miles from my home and a 21-minute drive. (I should have just accepted and filled the prescription he offered for my pain killer in March. Because I said I was good back then, but now I'm running out. Stupid.)
Checking out Access-a-Ride, it doesn't look like I'm disabled enough or disabled in the ways they'd want me to be, and the site says it won't take people far enough out of the NYC area to get me to my west Long Island doctors.(AAR also requires medical proof that you're absolutely helpless and an in-office interview, though I don't know if they waive that for the shutdown or just won't process applications until office visits can resume.) Plus, your application has to filter through their bureaucracy.
I've been feeling weak and dizzy today, with a lot of head pain. I'd think a lot of it is stress if my also disabled roommate weren't having a lot of the same problems. I don't usually get my spring thing in May, but nothing's been normal. You can comment here or at the Dreamwidth crosspost.
comments at Dreamwidth.
My mechanic's computer said the current "check engine" code came from something wrong with the oxygen sensor, not the message he got when the engine light turned on a week before or a message he's gotten before. He turned off the light and told me to drive around a bit to warm the transmission up and give him a call if the light turned back on. It turned on immediately and I called him to say so. While on the phone with him I started getting a strong engine smell with an undertone of exhaust. He said the sensor is why my transmission is going weird like it was, since the sensor helps tell the engine to start up. He told me he had Monday off but I could contact him Tuesday--I guessed they were full up on cars already that day (Saturday)--and when I asked said the oxygen sensor is about $250. He told me I should do my errands for the day and then go home, but the exhaust smell became so bad even with my window all the way open that I went straight home, parked, and walked around outside breathing deeply for ten minutes to try to clear my head.
I read very encouraging things about the oxygen sensor's tasks online--it does a lot, and its failure explains a lot of car problems I've been having--but when I called him this morning he asked if I really wanted to sink another $300-400 into this. From what I read online I'd hoped this would help the cylinder head/overheating problem abate, but he said it wouldn't at all. This new problem is a different problem; I'd still need to pay $2,500 on the cylinder head and top of the engine and I could still have my "check engine" light turning on. I just paid $107 a week ago to squeeze a little more life out of this car for two weeks to a month, and now I'm one month in on that.
I have a pain management appointment next Tuesday that the doctor's office absolutely refuses to do as a televisit. Taking an Uber would be $38 just one way, while mass transit there involves two Queens buses, one Long Island bus, and the Long Island Railroad, and the trip takes anywhere from an hour and forty-five minutes to over two hours depending on you hitting a lucky point on the schedules. The mass transit option would cost me $13.40 for the whole trip. This office is 12 miles from my home and a 21-minute drive. (I should have just accepted and filled the prescription he offered for my pain killer in March. Because I said I was good back then, but now I'm running out. Stupid.)
Checking out Access-a-Ride, it doesn't look like I'm disabled enough or disabled in the ways they'd want me to be, and the site says it won't take people far enough out of the NYC area to get me to my west Long Island doctors.(AAR also requires medical proof that you're absolutely helpless and an in-office interview, though I don't know if they waive that for the shutdown or just won't process applications until office visits can resume.) Plus, your application has to filter through their bureaucracy.
I've been feeling weak and dizzy today, with a lot of head pain. I'd think a lot of it is stress if my also disabled roommate weren't having a lot of the same problems. I don't usually get my spring thing in May, but nothing's been normal. You can comment here or at the Dreamwidth crosspost.
comments at Dreamwidth.