"Go for it or don't"

(or, how to fix a car over the holidays in a country where Christmas is a week-long holiday)

Some of you have heard that we had an issue last week with our car (now named "Trusty" the Nissan Sunny). It's an interesting story, if a bit long, so I'll try to put it in blog form.

Well, last Friday (that's Boxing Day for Kiwis) we left Wanaka and made a stop at "the Blue Pools" to stretch our legs before going over Haast pass. We had just had a great Christmas with Chrissy and were headed to a rather remote section of New Zealand called the West Coast.

We enjoyed our hike and I got into take over driving duties when we we backed out... SCREEETCH!!!! (Huh, that didn't sound good).

We tried forward: SCCRAAAATCH!!! (Hmmm, forward doesn't work either.)

We tried for 1/2 an hour in the parking lot. Forward (Screetch), Backward (Whine), Breakes (Scratch), Gas (Yelp). Nothing was changing and we were really freaking out the other bemused tourists who were having a smoke after their hike (none of whom lent a hand, thanks, but I won't chalk that up to their being tourists). And to top it off, it was beginning to rain.

So we had a decision to make: head back to Makarora (20 km in the wrong direction, 300 people on a National Holiday) or head to Haast (60 km in the right direction, 1,000 people who are still on holiday. We took the latter.

We headed on our drive, and for 2 kms, had the worst screeching I've ever heard from a car. My God, we're going to blow this thing up! Then, as we tested it out at a campground, it faded away.

Fine, we thought, and then we proceeded to drive the 200 kms straight to Fox Glacier without stopping for fear of the noise coming back. That night, we interupted the Toy Christmas to get a diagnosis from family friend Derek Kroes, a bit of a car expert. Thus creating a rare phenomenon which was a first for us and probably for Derek as well: a 10,000 km car diagnosis.

"Hmmm, he pondered, I'd guess at CV joint or Wheel Bearing. You could probably smear it with grease to keep you going for a few days."

That sounded accurate to me, we've broken a few CV joints on both the Honda and Mazda back home and would guess Trusty wouldn't be any different. I did tell Derek that we'd have to drive another 154 kms to get to a town of at least 10,000, but I didn't share the detail of the 8 FORDS that we drove the Sunny through a week earlier. (by ford, we're referring to an open stream crossing, not an automobile from Detroit. And yes Andy, we will post pictures of that!) Again, another reason I didn't doubt we doomed a CV joint to repair.

The next morning as we saddled up, I questioned a mechanic on my choice of grease. When he heard what I was attempting he said, "I wouldn't go that way, try wrapping the CV in siran wrap to keep in clean and then have it checked out as soon as you can. Sounded good to me, but we're now treating our car like Christmas leftovers. A bit odd.

We'll we made it to Hokitika without further incident, but we still had three days before a mechanic shop opened. When it did on Monday, 29 Dec., I ran into Hokitika Auto Works to get a diagnosis. The mechanic simply looked at me and said, "Well, bad news on that mate. It'll only take two hours to look at it, but we can't fit you in until the fifth." (Like I said, Kiwi's guard their holidays very seriously). I said some choice words (at the situation, not at the friendly mechanic!) and my intention to go over Arthur's Pass to Christchurch later that day (another 182 kms). He smiled and directed me to another shop a few kms down the road who might have a bit more time for me. Thanks, I said, and we were on our way.

When we arrived at the next shop, my wife kindly reminded me to "be assertive." I did just that. Before I knew it, I was in a test drive with the mechanic trying to duplicate the noise we had (which at this point hadn't occurred for 4 days and 358 kms). I expressed my doubt.

"Well, does it make the clicking when you turn hard that a CV joint would make?" He asked me.
Duh, I thought, that tell-tale noise hadn't occurred!

"Let me drive!" the mechanic said.

After 2 more tests and some hairpin turns he declared us fit for the pass.

"You probably had some dirt or a rock in your brakepad. It probably ground itself away or fell out." Arg, we just spent 4 days worrying about this and it was probably already fixed for us. We were relieved, but I was again humbled about how something as simple as an automobile can stress us out so much. We're definitely on the paranoid side when it comes to this car! And again, it's likely that or fording with the car would've caused our screeching.

So, that's the story of our near Holiday Car disaster. I can only hope that this was somewhat amusing and if you've gotten this far in the story, you're name is either "Andy", "Gene", or "Jim". Let me know if I'm close to right!