...you have to blow $300 on a car that's not even yours, get less than four hours sleep, and waste a sick day dealing with insurance nonsense all day.

BLAGH!!!!!!

Ugh.

My sympathies, Sean. What hoppen???

Sorry you went through that Sean. And what do I get for ignoring this thread until now? My car broke down getting onto the interstate this morning. Damn thing died and the engine light came on. I was able to creep back home (no one out at that time thankfully in the backwoods of Draper) but anytime I tried to give it some gas it would stall. Now I get to find someone to tell me how many hundreds of dollars it'll take to fix.

Cars and Insurance...two of my worst enemies as well.

buddy!

Ai Ai Ai! My sympathies to you both! I got my bike serviced the other day and wandered out $100 poorer... Mechanics of any sort are ruthless bandits.
Commiseration to you both!

Pov,

the meat-and-bones of it is: my car was in for repairs, and I got a loaner from the place I lease from. Well, the small print (yeah! small print! ;( ) says that towing is my responsibility.

So the loaner dies - taking the power steering and brakes with it - on a windy road in the middle of the night. The State Police had it towed to one garage, and I had to have it towed back to the dealer. Two towing bills, which should theoretically be reimbursed by insurance (fingers crossed).

There's a little more to it than that, but that's the highlights.

..and not counting the joys of trying to get home in a rural area at night (25 miles), not having a cell at the moment, or even my phone book (which was still in my regular car).

Oh, geez...

I'm in a rural area but at least I wasn't already at work (25 miles from home). Jeez Sean. You could be part of my team at work. We are always alternating car problems. I hope they gave you a better loaner.

I got my wheels back this morning, luckily, but thanks, Scott.

How's your beast faring? Is this Proty that's giving you problems?

Yeah, it is Proty that's acting up. Probably serves me right for naming him that. Not sure yet as I haven't been able to get ahold of my shop and I've been stuck on a conference call call. Now I'm waiting for the alarm guy to come to adjust our system over to wireless since we went to VOIP for our phone service.

Hey sean, Sorry to hear about the car problems. Is that still the same one you drove us around New York in?

Scott, See Proty is getting revenge on you.

When Jens car broke down we had only just taken out AA cover that week thank the gods. I was two hundred miles from home and a garage would have charged £3.00 per mile to two me home.

I still have the same car from your NYC visit, and that car was already in the shop - it was the loaner car that I got stuck having to tow.

Shouldn't it be me getting revenge on Proty? What have I ever done to him?

Still waiting on the parts from Kia. Down two cylindars. Guess I've been down by one for quite some time and it didn't even make a difference in the way the car was running. Good to know but would have been better before I lost a second.

I'll just add this to the tales of automotive woe - I got rear-ended by a tractor trailer last Thursday while driving my wife's car no less (an Isuzu Rodeo.) I was on the way home to pick her up for a doctor's appointment (she's on bedrest til we go in on the 23rd for labor to be induced) and when I was about to merge from one interstate to the next, traffic unexpectedly came to a complete dead stop. This was at about 1:15 in the afternoon on a cloudless day which you might think would mean the traffic flow wouldn't break down so abruptly. Well, it did. I had to brake hard to stay off the 18 wheeler in front of me, looked in my rearview to see what was coming and saw the rig bearing down on me with little chance of stopping. On instinct I started pulling into the emergency lane to give her a little extra space to stop. Thankfully it kept me from getting hit dead center, she was going fast enough that after she rammed me out of the way she went into the trailer on the rig in front of me. If I'd stayed put there'd have been a matlock sandwich. As it was, I expect the car's going to be totalled because the frame is almost certainly bent. The rear end was crushed. I went straight to an ER and nothing was broken or anything, but I have a gigantic bruise right below my left knee. My ribs are still sore and a few other bruises appeared gradually. I feel like a polaroid. I have a brace and crutches on my leg. If I walk on it without the brace it aches almost immediately. The insurance adjuster for the trucker isn't returning my calls today - they're dragging their heels about providing a rental til the claim is settled. My car's being worked on by my father-in-law so we're down to one vehicle that we borrowed off my wife's grandfather. Actually, it's a good thing my car isn't running right. If I'd been in the Saturn I might have careened right over the guard rail, instead glancing off it and coming back down.

So, that's my car story. It could have been so much worse than this, which is something I'm really thankful for. Sorry for long story, but it's one of those things that a lot of you will relate to: it wasn't too long before I thought about posting here about it, but I've been too zonked out at night to post.

By the way Scott, I had a Honda running on three cylinders for a while. Two must have been a real adventure.

Wow. I'm glad you made it out of that ok, Matt.

Holyyyyyy....

Glad you got out with as little injury as you did Matt. Cars can be replaced but you definitely couldn't be.

We should have a forum devoted to car trouble. Sounds like it's been a hot topic for a number of us lately, and certainly more $$$ than comics.

Well, there was this one time where this mailbox-- it just jumped out at me!! Knocked my passanger side mirror clean off. Yep. That darn mailbox did it. Uh-huh. (That's my story and I'm sticking with it.)

Nah, seriously, I'm glad all you boys are okay. Mailboxes aside, cars absolutely scare the bejezus out of me. They're so big. They're so clumsy. And especially in California where tailgating is as common as cracks in the sidewalk.

Plus!! They cost so very, very much to repair. (That mirror put more of a dent in my bank account than I'd care to mention.) So extra 'cause, yeah. Bad as the car problems themself can be, there's always the added joy of paying for it afterwards.

Cars are the . They also tend to break down when it's 40 below and the dead of night.

Cars are the

Matt, I am so glad you are OK, as others have said, cars can be replaced you cant. Either to your family or to us here in cyberspace. I'm glad you had the foresight to pull over like you did.

Hows the missus in all this I bet she got a heck of a fright

Good you survived to tell the story, Matlock! Sounds like you could use some bed rest too.

Wow. I'm glad you are intact, Matt... sorry about the bruises, but it beats the alternative.

Aslo glad this happened before you picked up the Mrs. (well, not exactly glad but you know what I mean)

Best wishes for a good and quick recovery.

Holy crap! I'm glad you're OK Matt! That sounds like a TERRIBLE experience. I'm sure it'll all work out (but it sure sucks) but most importantly you're all right.

And anytime you can go to bed at night reading your daughter Spider-Man stories is a good time!

Wow matlock, sounds like you could use matlock (or a space lawyer) to deal with the insurance company.

Kind of makes me not want to post my "bad day" item, but what the heck.

This morning I hear the "Had a Bad Day" song and I can't get it out of my head.

Thanks for the well wishes everyone. Really compared to what Vee and Grey have had to put up with this wasn't so bad, and could havebeen worse. My leg feels a bit better, though the bruise is just ridiculously large and still blossoming. I kept the brace off today since we were home all day. My wife's hanging in there, though we had the mandatory "false alarm" last night. We made a run to the hospital but they turned us away. At any rate, in a little over a week the boy will be here so she's only got to bear up that much longer.