The Care and Feeding of the Automobile.

As I was driving to Phoenix for Christmas with the folks I had car trouble on the hill going east on the I-10 east of Palm Springs. My car started to run bad. Really bad. I lost power, the RPMs went up like crazy, and my speed was dropping fast. I pulled over next to one of the call boxes that line the 10 and turned off the car. Was it bad gas? I filled up with gas from a station I never get gas from.

I sat in the car and weighed the options. Call AAA and I get 7 miles of a tow for free. How far am I from Phoenix? Over 200 miles at least. Get taken back to Palm Springs? How do I get to Phoenix?

I checked email with my nifty new iPhone. I thought of calling my dad, but it seemed like bad gas. I'd had this happen before. Thinking it was bad gas I started the car and it haltingly got up to freeway speeds. I had the stereo off so I could listen to the engine carefully. It sounded okay. 

When I stopped for gas at Tom Wells road just inside Arizona I noticed the car didn't like lower speeds. I filled up the tank and threw in a gas treatment thinking that might help the performance. I got back up to freeway speeds and worried about the hills I had to climb east of the Arizona border. If your car is fucked up it may not like them.

I had warned my dad when getting gas that the car was acting weird and I should be there in 2 hours or so. I made it home okay. When Saturday rolled around I took My car to Pep Boys as it was one of the few repair shops open on Saturday. They did some stuff and let the car run. Then it got worse. They checked the compression of the cylinders, and one was at 40. 40 is terrible and an indicator of burned out valves or rings.

They couldn't do anything. I wasn't charged for they didn't fix the problem. I paid for the mechanics time basically. My dad's mechanic wouldn't be in until the day after Christmas. I had to get back to LA after Christmas for work.

So my car got dropped off at his mechanic first thing the 26th, and I drove his Lincoln town car to LA. After my car is fixed (most likely a valve job) he will drive it to Blythe and we will switch cars. Thing is, my Dad is gonna hate driving my car. Really hate it...