That’s A Little Bit Funny And A Lot Terrifying

I was in a bad accident, and with part of the settlement money, I was able to get a new car. The higher-set and heated seat made a huge difference in my permanent injuries.

After a year of driving the new car with no issues, I’m coming home late one night, and as I turn at the light, the car stutters a little, just for a second. It seems okay, so I continue home.

Turning onto the road before mine, there’s a steep hill with a sharp curve that has a barrier on one side and a rock hill on the other. It’s hard to see who’s coming and going; at night, you have to watch for headlights. As I start up this hill, the car sputters again, the headlights dim, it slows to five mph with my foot to the floor, and caution/error lights are all over my dash. I have two choices: try to get up the hill and make it home, or take a chance rolling back to where I can pull off. If I stop on the hill, I WILL get hit. I decide to keep going, and I do make it home.

I call the dealership in the morning, and they tow my car in. They have it for two days.

Mechanic: “It was a computer issue. We’ve cleared the codes, and you’re good to go.”

I get the car back and it runs fine… for a week.

I’m heading to the dentist, and I’m in a turn lane waiting for the light to change. The light goes green, I go to turn left, and the car dies. There’s no sputter and no warning; it just shuts off. Thankfully, I am still in the turn lane so I’m not blocking traffic, just those behind me.

Flashers on, I call the dealership to get a tow and I’m told it will be two hours. I try to restart (putting the car in park to do so) but it doesn’t even attempt to turn over. So, I’m in my car, flashers on, blocking the turn lane, it’s ninety-five degrees, and I’m trying to wave people around me to cut down on how many cuss me out for blocking the turn lane.

A couple of people offer to push my car across the road, but it’s not exactly safe, plus there’s another issue. Two police officers pull up to see what the problem is. They’re super nice and offer to get me safely across the street to the gas station on the corner. The problem: my car will NOT shift out of park. The brake won’t depress at all.

One of the officers takes a good five minutes to finally get it down enough to shift into neutral, and he pushes it by hand into the gas station parking lot while the other officer blocks traffic. They make sure I’m good and have my phone, and they head out. The tow truck finally arrives, and my mom picks me up and runs me home.

Two days later, the service manager calls me, sounding beyond confused.

Service Manager: “We found the problem. One of the main wires in the wiring harness wasn’t actually connected. It was just touching what it should have been secured to. It has been like that since it was built. I cannot understand how you’ve driven the car for a year before having issues. It shouldn’t have worked at all!”

I guess my saving grace was how little I drive. In two years, I’ve put less than 15,000 miles on it.

The service manager asked if he could bring in service managers from some other locations to see it since, as far as he knew, that issue hadn’t been seen before. I was fine with it, but it’s still funny thinking about how confused the guy sounded when he called me.