What a difference a week makes

Last Sunday, panic ensued because it sounded like the MIL was ready to buy us a car of her choosing. I felt we didn’t need a car because our 8 year old MINI was running just fine, gets good gas mileage, is fun to drive and is perfect for city driving. To be sure, it was fun looking at new cars, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that an extra car would sit unused in most cases.

Thursday, we got an oil change on our car. Bonus to that, is that the oil change wound up being free because they couldn’t change the filter. Extra-extra bonus is that the power streering came back. I guess they refilled the fluid…I don’t know.

Friday, Adrian hopped into the car to go grocery shopping. The car died in the driveway. There’s something wrong with the gear shift. It won’t move. We can push the clutch in, but we can’t shift.

Now, this is unsurprising because as I’ve mentioned before, our MINI is a piece of crap on wheels. But to have it happen now, is just our kind of luck. If it’s the gear box, this will be the 3rd time it’s happened. I doubt it’s the gear box, because usually, we can move the clutch around. But that’s an $1100 fix. If it’s the transmission, that will mean, it’s the 3rd transmission to fail in the 8 years we’ve had the car. The price tag on that repair is about $2800. Either way, we don’t have the money. And considering the MIL does not like the MINI and wants us to get a new car anyway, we don’t see her help forthcoming.

A week later: We’ve missed the Festival of Books due to the broken car. Today we were supposed to go visit the MIL to celebrate our daughter’s birthday. And now we’re totally okay with the MIL getting us a new car.

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The What a difference a week makes by Anika Malone, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 25th, 2010 at 9:49 am and is filed under Auto. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

  • Sorry to hear the mini died, maybe you'll get the Kube you fell in love with at the auto show.
  • I almost hate to suggest this, but have you checked the clutch fluid? It looks like a small brake cylinder, and indeed the mechanics call it a "slave cylinder" because the brake cylinder is the master. I have a slow leak in my Civic's cylinder & have to top it up every few weeks to keep the clutch working. (BTW, it takes the same brake fluid you're putting in the brake cylinder.)
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