A few weeks ago I was pulling into my parking spot at home having just picked Brandon up from school. I put the car into reverse to realign myself, and when I put the car back into drive; it wouldn't move anymore. The car continued to go backwards just fine, but decided that it didn't want to go forward anymore!
Having spent what seemed like a lot of my childhood watching my parents deal with car trouble (it felt like one of our cars was ALWAYS breaking down, and with us in it!), I have developed a huge fear of getting stranded due to a car that has stopped working. This fear has only increased since Brandon was born.
I am incredibly grateful that my car chose to break down the moment we got home. Maybe it somehow knew about my fear! After going through a love/hate moment with my car...(I love my car for making it home, I hate it because it broke down), I resigned myself to the fact that it was going to be a while before I was able to drive my car again.
So, of course the fun part came next: trying to figure out what was wrong with the car and somehow find a way to pay for it. Nick, and a few other people wondered if it was the transmission. We had it towed to a mechanic who would give us a free diagnosis, and he discovered that the transmission was dead. $2600 to rebuild it, $1800 for a new one. I don't know about you, but we're not made out of money in ANY way! Unfortunately it doesn't grow on trees, either. (Wouldn't that be the coolest thing if it did!)
Unlike my mother before me, I am lucky enough to be married to a man who knows A LOT about cars. When he heard it was the transmission, he knew he could fix it himself. He found a used transmission for $320, and it only has 55,000 miles on it. With a little monetary help from family we purchased the transmission Friday afternoon. My wonderful, awesome sister has let us turn half her driveway into a makeshift mechanic garage so that Nick can fix it there.
The past two nights he's been there, working on my car. My nephew has been very interested in helping Nick, so now another boy can learn how to fix a car for his future family!! Nick came home Saturday night around 9:30pm, covered in grease and dirt. It was quite a site. He has also discovered that my brakes are bad. No problem, he can change those too!
It will probably take the rest of the week to fix my car since he does work through the day. Here now are a few pictures of what my car looks like now. My descriptions will be limited since I have no idea what the heck I'm looking at!!
My left tire! That one was easy!!
I believe Nick told me that somewhere on the left of this picture is where the transmission goes
This is my car, but you wouldn't know it. This looks like a junk pile!
Car parts on the left, old transmission in the middle, new transmission on the far right
New transmission goes on the far right....where the big whole is!!
