I killed my car

[chrisvenus]

Today I got the bad news that my car is pretty dead. The worst thing is that its pretty much my fault. I intend to recount the story of my own stupidity here as a lesson to others and so that I never need to say it again and feel stupid every time I do.

So, a while ago when I was driving I noticed a red light come on my dashboard. I peered at it and it went out. Oh good, I thought and thought nothing more of it. A while later the light appeared and disappeared again. It was the oil light.

The light started appearing intermittently, usually when I first started the car before it had warmed up. I figured probably it meant the car was maybe a bit low on oil but by the time it heated up it stopped caring. Now I know that my annual service always gives me a full oil change so I thought I'd leave it til then. If it was a critical problem the light would be on all the time, right?

Wrong. Last friday on the way home from work my car started making evil unhappy noises. Coming from the engine. "Shit" thinks I. I limp home, taking the slow route through oxford for fear of breaking down on the A34. I don't, I make it home fine. Saturday morning I check the oil level and find it definitely needs oil so I go and get some. I put three liters of oil into the car before it decides its pretty much happy again (according to the dipstick). I got a very bad feeling about how critically wrong things might have been at this stage since the difference between max and min, according to the handbook, is 1.5L.

At the time it was sounding much happier and when I drove it saturday it was rattling a little but much quieter and, I thought, getting better though I suspect I was kidding myself.

Then on the way to work on monday it crit failed. A lot more noise and a huge power loss in the engine. I decided to pull over and get a recovery dude to come take me away. So on monday it was taken to the garage where it was due for its service today.

Today the phone call that I had been expecting came. It was worse than I thought though. I'd been expecting maybe up to a grand of damages, worst case. If I was lucky a couple of hundred. Not good but not bad. No, instead he told me of the woes of my little end, the issues that my crank might be having and the forbidden friendship that may have developed between my pistons and valves. He then explained that there were two solutions, the complete engine or the parts. The latter was coming in at 1100 pounds and the former at over three thousand. Now these prices exclude VAT (so another 200 and 500 quid respectively) and labour (10 hours at 85+VAT per hour) meaning that repairs would be a minimum of about 2,000 pounds.

My car is worth less than that.

So I killed my car. This is, of course, a whole world of bad. I have no wheels and need to sort out more. I'm goign to be exploring the joys of bussing to work in the morning and of course not being able to get about anywhere near as easily.

The one upside of it is that I've always liked the Toyota Celica and this might be my opportunity to buy one. I'm looking at them about 3 years old at about 10k. This is a scary amount of money.

So yeah, that's my current woes. I did start feeling really miserable about this but then I realised half of it was guilt about having killed the car through my own negligence. Then I realised I should stop anthropomorphising it and accept that it was actually just a car with no mind of its own and no opinion one way or another on whether its engine worked or was a heap of junk. I'm still pissed off at myself for being so stupid but now I'm looking on the brightside that if I can scrounge the money together I get a shiny new car that I have been longing for for some time.

I now just need to look to see if I can find somewhere to go test drive them to see if they are all I've been after. :)

Comments

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

Hoo boy, now you've got me worried. My oil low light comes on every time I turn the car power on - then disappears immediately if I start the engine. When I first noticed it I topped the oil up, but after that when the light stayed on I concluded the car was just stupid. I hope it isn't about to explode :(

[chrisvenus]

Don't be too paranoid. They always come on when you first turn the key in the ignition. This was lingering for a while after the engine was started though. But at the end of the day if you are paranoid and regularly check your oil levels then it can't hurt really. As long as they are above min you'll be fine. :)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be so sure the minor negligence made much difference. Our previous car was forever flashing its oil light for silly reasons and would occasionally even go so far as to briefly switch on the "Oh noes! Pull over at once!" light. It was just immensely paranoid about oil and the light meant little more than "Your oil level is below 80%".

[chrisvenus]

Yeah, but as I said the oil level was one and a half liters below its minimum level which, when the variation between min and max is that, seems pretty significant. I do think that there may have been other factors but this will certainly have precipitated things. I mean, there was clearly something wrong for it to have lost that much oil really. I just can't help but think I really should have been able to do stuff about it...

[kissifa.livejournal.com]

Boo about no wheels. I hope the Celica is what you're hoping for! :)

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

While I am very sorry that you will be seriously out of pocket, can I just say that you using the phrase

Then on the way to work on monday it crit failed

without any irony whatsoever really made me smile? It was absolutely the right phrase to use where very few people would use it, and all the better as a result.

[chrisvenus]

:) thank you. I try my best.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

I'm so geeky I didn't even register it as out of the ordinary!

This, on the other hand:

"the forbidden friendship that may have developed between my pistons and valves"

Made me go 'Awwwww.'

You have a good turn of phrase, Venus.

[chrisvenus]

Well, at least it appears that my plan of using more flowery language to hide the fact that all I was saying was "whinge whinge whinge, feel sorry for me, whinge" worked like a treat. Thank you though. :) Maybe I should start writing engine slash...

[al-fruitbat.livejournal.com]

Maybe I should start writing engine slash...

[hovers mouse over the 'defriend' option]

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Yeah! Do it!

(see below)

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

Yeah! Do it!

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

I've always liked the Toyota Celica...

Make sure you get the right model. This one looks sweet, the others are kinda nasty.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

I've got an electronic oil gauge in my Laguna, with 6 lights. It only shows up when starting the engine (after a few seconds it gets replaced by the odometer). It's wonderfully unreliable, and has been known to register zero, and then with the addition of a single litre of oil, it jumps to the full six lights. Usually it alternates between 0 and 4. I should get around to actually using the dipstick...

In other comments, oh dear. Ouch. And other commiserating noise.

[al-fruitbat.livejournal.com]

S'worth checking your oil with the dipstick about once a month. I used to do oil, tyres, water and screenwash - but then I was doing 2000 miles per month on my long commute.

[chrisvenus]

You coudl ahve told me that a few months ago. ;-) I do nowhere near that much normally. I suspect the problem may have been exacerbated by the fact I have done quite a lot of driving around the country in the last month and a bit. Well, in fact pretty much all in one weekend a while back...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I shall learn from this, as I never really think to check such things.

Our car revealed yesterday that there's someting wrong with its cigarette lighter, which means it's not capable of powering a satnav, which while it's not really on the same scale is still quite annoying to find out just after you've bought a satnav.

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

We have the same problem. On the plus side we don't actually have sat-nav anyway... it just prevents me powering an MP3 player.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Irksome!

[snow-leopard.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about your car.
Hope you get it sorted.

[cjholding.livejournal.com]

I killed a car last wednesday. A stone managed to get into the timing cover and punched a hole through the timing belt; causing it to jump. Have been quoted £700 (inc. labour) to fix it, which includes repairing bent valves.

Garage used to suggest you checked your oil when you filled up with petrol; it's worth doing once a week (not that I do). Mines been below Min on several occasions, but never 3.0L down (there is only about 5L in the sump).

With reference to the Renault "digital" dipsticks I believe they only show the level between Min and Max so 1L to fill it is not unreasonable. Having tried to check the dipstick on a Kangoo (and burning myself on the exhaust) I think I'd be inclined to trust it.

Bad luck Chris, happy hunting for a new car.

[mrlloyd.livejournal.com]

Now I don't know the details of your commute, the location of your friends and so on. But here in Holland we ditched our car about two years ago and haven't missed it at all.

The thing that made it possible was 'greenwheels' a scheme where you can book cars when you need them for short periods of time. Extended public bit here

http://weblog.greenpeace.org/makingwaves/archives/2007/02/giving_up_the_car.html

I'd suggest having a think about how to live without a car, trying it for a few months, and then deciding if you need to buy one or not. We're saving a lot of money and not missing it at all.

[chrisvenus]

Its actually quite sad but I considered if my bus experiences weren't too bad maybe doing it more often even after I get a car. Unfortunately there is no immediate reason to do so. My commute takes three times as long and costs me more money. I was all ready to use public transport to save me some money and be a bit more environmentally friendly but an extra hour and a half today commuting and an extra couple of quid just doesn't make it appealing in any way. I did consider the thought of hybird cars which are better for the environment and not bad perofrmance but they cost more unfortunately and although there are long term savings I'm not sure that helps right now.

The other factor is that for various other reasons related to stuf I discuss in locked posts having a car so I can easily get to see people is a good thing. Buses are always more hastle and that can be a pretty major factor for me.

[mrlloyd.livejournal.com]

That sucks, mostly because living here surrounded by *really good* public transport you realise it doesn't have to be that way...

Ah well.

[chrisvenus]

Yeah, I was actually thinking that too. I guess its a vicious circle that not enough people use public transport that they can do it cheaper and they are not going to get more people to use it because its too expensive...

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

living here surrounded by *really good* public transport

It's easy to forget that Oxford isn't really a city at all, just a large village with a cathedral, until you want to catch a bus after midnight.

A bus? After midnight? Not in these parts, mate. You want to go to That London for those kinds of things etc, etc...

[mrlloyd.livejournal.com]

In Oxford's case better cycle lanes would make a huge difference. It's flat, lots of people have bikes, and yet a combination of medieval town planning and 20th century town planning have conspired to make them hazardous to use...

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I largely do not admit this, but y'know a few years ago when my engine blew up on the M6? The oil light had been lighting up intermittently (basically, anytime I went over speed bumps or round sharp bends) for a couple of weeks. I figured it wasn't actually low yet, it was just that the sloshing occasionally made it read low.

I suspect that some manufacturers have lunatic ideas about when the oil light should go on. hendybear agrees.

I'm sorry about your car :(

[chrisvenus]

Yes. I'm not sure at what stage the oil light would have come on permanently. It is nice to know that I am not alone in this though. Your logic is pretty akin to mine really.

[cjholding.livejournal.com]

The most common implementation of an oil light is actually to indicate low pressure and not low level. It's prime purpose is to indicate immenant failure of the oil pump. Manufacturers assume that you will check oil as described in the handbook.

It will flash over speed bumps and round corners when the oil is dragged away from the oil pump pickup.