DermerDays

Following the advice of Allison Smith from a lecture at the Maine Photographic Workshops, I have set up a Flickr account. Check out my photos!

Posted by at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Guess what kind of car I'm driving today. No. Come on, guess!

I called the VW dealership from Maine on Friday and told them I would be bringing my car into the shop today as I had no working windshield wipers. Furthermore, I explained to them, I expected a loaner car waiting for me when I arrived. They complied. They even gave me a Mazda 6, rather than the Kia. It makes me wonder, though, how come a VW dealership does not give out volkswagon loaner cars?

The repair guy called. The motor is bad, he says. And, something else that I did not understand. And, of course, they do not have the motor that they need to fix the wipers. But, he assured me, he would have it in the morning and my car would be ready by the afternoon. We shall see. Meanwhile, I am seriously wondering why I switched back to the German car from the reliable Japanese car.

Argh.

Posted by at 6:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am still in Maine. It started raining late yesterday afternoon. I was with a former student, Peg, and she was driving when it began. Then, I attended a lecture last night. It was not until around 9pm that I got into my car to head back to my motel room. It was pouring rain, but I was not concerned. After all, I have my brilliant new car with rain sensing wipers. What could be better in a pouring rain storm in the dark of a Maine night. I got in the black beauty, started the engine and flipped the lever to turn on the wipers. Nothing. Is that the wrong lever? I turned on the interior light. I looked at the lever. It was the right one. I flipped it up, flipped it down and hit the dashboard with my fist. No wipers.

What is the number one reason for making the economic investment in a brand new car?

I had to drive six miles on Maine route 1 in the pitch black of night with pouring rain and no windshield wipers.

Posted by at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am in Maine. Again. And, I am driving my car, but only after a painful and anxious Tuesday spent at Quirk Volkswagon.


There were several warranty issues with the car, as noted in an earlier post, "Who Really Needs A Car?". I knew I had to go back to Maine this week for a workshop at the Maine Photographic Workshops. I was not comfortable driving my car to Rockport with the undercarriage problem -- it was still rattling at various times of acceleration. I wanted the mechanic to look at that and to fix the warranty issues before I took off for the drive. The warranty problems were, after all, the headlight and the GPS system. Two things that I felt I would need on the road for a four hour drive by myself.

I called Quirk last week on Tuesday, when I felt that the undercarriage was still flopping around. The service man who answered the telephone, Bill, who knew me well given my current issues, stated that they would not be able to see my car (just like a physician's office) for at least two weeks. I ranted and raved about the car being brand new with only 2000 miles on it and that it needed the warranty repairs before I hit the road. Against my bullying, he was defeated; he conceded and agreed to get my car in on Tuesday, August 8th. My departure date was Wednesday, August 9th. I think this was his way of giving me one little stab -- making me wait until the last possible moment before I had to leave.

I arrived at Quirk on Tuesday promptly at 7am when they opened. My understanding was that the repairs would take approximately two hours. I sat in the waiting area, working on my computer. After three hours, I went back to the shop and my car was still up on the lift. I returned to my work. After five hours, I went back to complain and Bill was stuffing pasta with red sauce in his mouth. He mumbled that my car was ready and that he was simply entering the data into the computer. He told me this with his mouth full of pasta.

I finally got my keys and slid into the beautiful black leather seat of my Passat. I started the car and, as I was about to drive off, I noticed that the air conditioning was blowing hot air. I gave it a few minutes, fiddled with the dials, but no cool air. Swearing happened.

I went back into the shop, "Is there a reason why my air conditioning no longer works?" I asked the smarter shop guy, Donnie.

"Uhh, no." He said. "Can I have the keys?"

He drove it and confirmed my diagnosis. Back inside, Donnie started checking under the hood. No luck. He called over another mechanic. They hooked my car back up to the diagnostic computer. No answers. I decided that my biggest problem is my love of high tech gadgetry. My car has to interface with a computer before a human can determine the car's issue. In this case, neither the computer nor the two technicians could determine why my air conditioning was no longer functioning. I waited for another hour and a half and then demanded a loaner. They gave me a Kia. A Kia. Kia.

What's the number one reason for throwing away money for a brand new car? It's new so it won't have problems.

Right.

At 4:30p.m. Bill called me, "Want your car back?" Now, is this the time to attempt a witticism? No.

"If it works," I replied.

I drove the Kia back out to Braintree, picked up my car and sped off to try to get to the class I am teaching at Emerson on time. I was about ten minutes late. That cemeted the horror of that day.

I made it to Maine. Everything seems to be working, but I do not feel the kind of confidence in my car that I want, despite all of the high tech gadgetry. Sad.

But, I still love my car even though it hurts me.

Posted by at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last Friday (July 28) my significant other, Milissa sent me an email. --Hey, wanna go to a wedding in Maine tomorrow? --

Hmm, a wedding. . .yuck. But, Maine, mountain biking. . .I replied, --Okay, but do I have to actually go to the wedding? --

--Yes--

Ahh well, small price, I thought. So, I found a spa that was near the wedding locale thinking that we'd have a fun weekend out of it. We could get massages and I could go mountain biking. Great Plan -- but, you know that cliche about the best laid plans. . .
____________

It was an outdoor wedding, so it was a bit warm (to understate the sweltering humidity in which I was required to walk, sit and then walk again in my "dress-up" clothes which tend to be more oppressive than my usual shorts and t-shirt). It was a nice wedding, though, despite the heat. The wedding was on Saturday in the afternoon. We made it back to our spa hotel by about 6pm or so. We walked around a bit before determining that we would dine in the hotel's restaurant. Expensive, but good. We watched some TV, ate chocolate -- you know, good stuff.

Our massages were scheduled for the following morning at 10am. We had our massages, loaded up the car and headed to nearby Bradbury State Park so that I could do some riding. When we arrived at the park, there were tons of cars lined up along the road to the entrance of the park. We got to the entrance and queried the Park Ranger -- apparently there was a mountain bike race going on. Cool. She said we could go in and said it might be tough to find a place to park. We entered and, indeed, there really was no place to park. People were sort of doing the make-shift thing and extending the parking beyond designated areas. I pulled up alongside one such car that was parked atop a grassy area and drove up beside it.

Suddenly, there was an unpleasant scraping sound emanating from the bottom of my car.

Milissa yelled, "Stop."

I ignored her and said, "Eh, it'll be fine." I thought it was like when you scrape the bottom of the car on a curb or something. So, I plowed ahead and the noise became much worse.

"Stop the car," Milissa screamed.

I did. She got out to look. I got out to look. Neither of us could really see anything, so it seemed logical to simply pull the car off that grassy area and park elsewhere. I still believed that it was probably a simple scraping from some rocks that were on the ground. I moved the car to the side of the dirt road and got over as far as possible. Seemed like a great place to park. I got out of the car and Milissa got on her phone. She was fielding calls all weekend. That's all I can say about that.

I went for a great ride. The race course was marked by red tape and I decided to ride that. What a great course. I got muddy and had a blast. I got back to the car a couple of hours later and Milissa was still on the telephone. I changed my clothes, loaded up my bike and got in the car. We pulled out of the make-shift parking space and started down the dirt road to the exit of the park. The car made a terrible noise.

Milissa just looked at me and blinked slowly. I stopped the car by the ranger's station and got out to look at the undercarriage again. I couldn't really see anything. The ranger lady came out and asked if everything was okay. I explained the mishap and asked if she knew of a gas station nearby. She told us where the nearest town was located. But, my car has a GPS, so I just plugged in 'gas station' and we started off again. We traveled about 1/4 of a mile and the noise was just so awful that we both determined that something was really wrong. Not wanting to further damage the car, we pulled over.

Finally, when I examined the undercarriage again, I could see a hunk of of metal hanging down.

Seeing this, I realized that I had to call a tow truck. Fortunately, Volkswagen's come with free roadside assistance. Unfortunately, Maine has the worst cell phone reception possible. So, I am walking up and down the side of the road, watching the bars (or lack thereof) on my cell phone to get good enough reception to be able to stay on the line with RoadAmerica. We finally complete our conversation -- the RoadAmerica operator and me -- after about 3 disconnects. She assures me that she will be contacting a tow company and sending someone out. She says that she will call back with an approximate arrival time. Sheesh. That meant I had to keep the reception on my phone active. I found that when I sat on the back of the car with the rear hatch open that the reception remained pretty stable.


After about a half of an hour, RoadAmerica finally called back with the name of the tow company and said that the driver would be there within an hour. Good times.

In the meantime, I was worried about Milissa getting back to Boston because she had to work an overnight call the next day. We called her colleague who was also still in the area post-wedding. She kindly came to our rescue. Initially, I was going to wait for the tow truck and send Milissa on her way. But, our rescuer -- Shonda -- insisted that she would not leave me out in the middle of Maine by myself.

Finally, the tow truck driver arrived. It is good that Shonda did refuse to leave me there as we found out that the tow driver was able to deliver the car to a VW dealer, but that dealer was not open and no one would even look at it until Monday. On top of that, he was not familiar enough with the area to say that I would be able to find a motel to stay in while all of this transpired. We finally determined that we should just have the car towed back to Boston; unfortunately, VW only covers towing for a max of fifteen miles. So, I had to cough up $300 to have the car towed back to Boston.

The saga does not end there, but that sums up the weekend. Shonda drove Mis and I back to our house and the tow driver got my car out to Quirk VW. Two months ago, I increased my deductable to $1000 which is more than half what it is going to cost to fix the car. I also just got a letter from the insurance company informing me that they would be raising my premiums due to the "accident" that they determined was "more than 50% my fault." Milissa would probably agree with this assessment.

To top it off, the part needed to fix the car is on back-order from VW (the heat sink that sits under the exhaust system). How could there be such a demand for that part that it would be on back-order? They bent the damaged heat sink back up for the time being and it is still making a noise, so who knows what sort of damage that is causing to the car.

Wednesday (Aug 9), I am supposed to drive to Maine for a conference.

Posted by at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)