Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Cash out the window

Argghhh!!! I took my car in to get inspected today. I figured $45 tops for the inspection -my car runs fine and I do all my scheduled maintenance. But no - my check engine light is on (I already had it checked out - the sensor is bad - the car is fine) Well with the new inspection machines - if the check engine light is on - the car automatically fails! So now I have to replace the sensor: $300 + labor. I am bummed! I was going to go to the Renegade Craft fair in Brooklyn this weekend, instead I will be schlepping my car back to the mechanic and drastically reducing my savings.

The only good thing to come out of this is I took the day off today to take my car in so I will have lots of free time to work on my knitting.

But I am still bummed.

6 comments:

Deneen said...

That really stinks. It happened with us, but Mike knew about the "check engine light on-failure". Occasionally, it would go off on it's own so....my husband waited til one day when he was driving it and it was off and then he ran the car to inspection. It passed and then, as he was pulling out, the light came back on!

It's ashame because all the electronics in the newer cars seem to have problems. They're costly to fix, things that really aren't that important as far as driving a car, and are a general nuisance.

Heather said...

Mine stays on all the time, too. But, if they hook it up to the computer it will say off for a day or so. Might that work?

Birdsong said...

I hate that feature in the newer cars! Here in CA, you flunk smog if the check engine light is on, and my daughter bought a car a few years back that we eventually sold because it would have cost too much to tear apart the dash and find the problem. Hope you have a big stash and can knit for consolation.

Anonymous said...

That happened to us when we first moved to Maryland. And then to top that off the mechanic we took the car to decided to drill a hole in the catalytic converter as if we weren't smart enough to figure out that there is no way a perfect hole could be worn in it like that. Sorry you had to pay so much money. :(

Trixie said...

Ich. Damn technology. Damn Inspections.

I had a friend who had a similar issue. Nothing wrong with the car but they failed her for "cosmetic" reasons. It wasn't like the car was going to fall apart or was unsafe.

Sheez.

Anonymous said...

Sorry about your car. Just before we got our new car, I had to spend about $700 on our old caravan. It just burns me up to have to pay out that much money on a car. Oh well, it beats walking!!! Thank you for the good wishes you posted on my blog today. We are all very excited about it all.