The emotional kind that is! And all over bad gas. Yup, I said it, bad gas! Not the bodily kind...I know where you're minds are going! I'm talking about the kind that you fill your car up with.
Two weeks ago, I made a trip to visit a dear friend. It was one of those moral support kind of weekends and if I would have known the hell I would endure during the trip (all due to the car); I'd absolutely do it again...a thousand times over. Because that's what friends are for. To be your support during hard times. Anyways, back to the real story here.
I stayed that Sunday longer than I normally do and decided to head home around 5pm. Got in my little car and went to the gas station around the corner from her house. Filled that sucker up with regular unleaded gas and went on my merry way. Two minutes down the road and my car starts to slow down. My thought process: well, I AM driving up a hill...step on the gas. Okay, little car stepping on the gas means speed up NOT slow down. FUCK! It's gonna die. Let's make it to the next side road...come on little girl I know you can do it! I successfully made it to the side road, but barely. From that point...I tried starting her up again and she would start but immediately shut off. The engine just a shaking away and making a loud pop each time i tried. About an hour later, plenty of tears, one random man that gave me his business card so I would know he wasn't going to try any funny business (true story), and my dear friends coming to the rescue...my car was being towed away to be fixed the next day.
Only it wasn't fixed that Monday and was told to give it one more day because they didn't quite figure out what was wrong yet. Another day of missed work and that Tuesday morning they tell me they are going to tow the car to another mechanic who works on Hondas. Kevin, the very nice new mechanic told me he would try to fix it by 4 that day so I could get back home. He calls me around noon to tell me he pulled a sample of the gas and it was diesel or ethanol. Whatever it was it was BAD and tore my car up!
I made my friend drive me to the gas station so that I could try to remember the steps I took when filling up. I wanted to make sure I didn't accidentally put diesel in my car. After talking to the manager and getting a copy of the receipt that showed regular gas; the next stop was talking to the owner of the station and letting him know he would be paying for my car repair.
Well, that turned into a whole mess of its own. Ended up having to rent a car so that I wouldn't miss anymore work because Kevin wouldn't have my car ready until the next day. Spent the next few days going back and forth with the owner who went from saying he'd cover half, to all of it plus the rental, to none because he didn't feel it was his bad gas. He told me it could have been the tank of gas I filled up on or someone tampering with my car. After many phone calls, emails, and tears I got him to FINALLY agree to pay for the damages and rental car. Had it set up where my friends would pick up my car and Kevin calls me back saying, tell your friends to hold on because the car is broke AGAIN! Turns out bad gas will melt the cadilac converter and that would be $1100 to fix. Thankfully my dear friend (who is a guy and can talk car talk) came to the rescue and hooked me up with a way to fix that problem for $25! Done and done! I knew there was NO way that the owner of the gas station would pay for that repair as well and I just wanted the mess to be over with.
Spent the next weekend back with my friend and got my little car back. She is doing well and only gave me one scare on the way back home when she didn't want to start after getting gas at BP. I was ready to sell her at that point, but she's getting me around town so I'll keep her for a little while longer.
The moral of this story: don't buy bad gas! If it says it has 10% ethanol in the gas they can actually get away with it being more than that and it will tear up your car if it isn't meant to run on ethanol. And, stick to your guns about holding people accountable for doing the right thing. If your a girl, tears do work if you need to resort to that!
The cherry on top of that oh so fun week: my fridge died while I was out of town and had to throw everything away...
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