Getting my Saturns in a Row

For a change, at the end of last year, I had a few days besides the holidays off. I took the Friday before Christmas as my last personal day (the day after goody day, I wasn't going to miss that!!!), then I had scheduled my last two vacation days for the Monday and Tuesday between the weekend and Christmas day off. The kids are out of school, and the extended family always has interesting time conflicts or constraints for getting together for Christmas, so I figured with all those days off we should be able to get something going. In addition to family time and relaxation (read: playing more Runescape) I'd planned on getting some stuff done around the house. Those were my plans.

Of course, something always comes up, doesn't it??? On the Wednesday before all this I was driving into work, and on the transition ramp, and the transmission shifted down much firmer than usual. Strange. When I got off the freeway, it was acting like it was low on fluid, not wanting to connect and accelerate on the launches. Just a little further, just far enough to get to work, please!!! All the while visions of shot transmissions dancing in my head. On the very last stretch, the charge light starts flickering. Stranger still. When I got parked, I left her running and popped the hood. The A/C compressor and the power steering pump were spinning fine, but the alternator wasn't turning. Sounds right, but what's really going on here??? Shut it down, and checked the alternator. It turns fine, but I shouldn't be able to do that with the belt on there. No belt tension. Belt tensioner goes, belt has no tension and stops turning the higher draining devices. Not enough juice, and a computer controlled tranny acts up, at least I hope that's what it is!!!

Called up my dad, told him my tale of woe, and he agrees to help me out, getting baby towed to his place and swapping his truck with me. So, on my first day off, I end up going down to their house and putting a new tensioner and drive belt on me car, as well as doing an oil change while I've got it up on jack stands. A little battery charge, and it runs like it had never had a problem. Success!!!

All's good, right??? The next couple of days were spent getting the final presents bought and wrapped, and food for the extended family get together, which was going to happen on Monday. Monday rolls around, and we load up the wife's car (name really hasn't stuck, but I call her the Wagon Queen Family Truckster, and ode to National Lampoon's Vacation) and head on down. There's some traffic, and as soon as it eases up, I get to accelerating, and lo and behold, it feels like the transmission isn't hooking up, like it was low on fluid. Deja vu all over again!!! I pull off the freeway and find a car parts store. Checking the transmission this time reveals that yes, the transmission is actually low on fluid!!! I guess all the fluid slicking down the underside of the car should have given me a clue. Bought a couple quarts and filled her up, and headed back homeward with my fingers crossed. Made it about a mile back, and it was slipping again, so I pulled off and called triple A for a tow back home.

Here's where things get interesting. The tow truck shows up fairly quick, but refuses to tow the car back to our house!!! On account of our house is on a hill. Never mind that, just about every year for the last 18 that we've lived here I've ended up having some car or another towed home!!! I called triple A back, and they say they'll get in touch with dispatch and call me back. They don't. I call them again, probably 45 minutes or so later, and they say the same thing again. Same results. Sometime in there, my dad was picking up my nephew a bit over from there, and he swings by to pick up the rest of the family and the presents and the ham. Long story short, it was FIVE HOURS AAA STRANDED ME IN THE GHETTO before I was able to get towed, and the ONLY reason I was able to get towed was I told them to tow it to my parent's house. I think it was four times I called when triple A that they said they would call me back that they didn't, and finally I got in touch with one of the head people there. Not impressed, AAA. What good is it having an emergency roadside assistance plan if they won't tow you home??? I suspect that, since it was in one of those crooked 3rd world fiefdoms along the 710 freeway that the tow company there has a lock on all the business in the area and no one else is allowed to tow cars there. SO, that's how I blew day 2 of all my last vacation days of the year.

Final day off I spent driving down to my parents house (thanks, AAA, there's another hour and a half of my life wasted, could have been doing this in my own driveway) and cleaning all that fluid off the best I could. I suspected one of the cooler lines to the transmission, or the filter, or one of the shaft seals. I was right about that, it was leaking around the filter, which on these Saturns is a spin on, much like an oil filter. Got a fresh one and much fluid, and she was back on the road!!! A little troubling is some of the noises it makes on acceleration, kinda a "nnninnng nnninnng niiinnnng" as it goes, but it feels and drives the same as it always has. Fingers crossed again.

Long story short, of all the days I had off, Christmas was the only one I was able to do much relaxing on!!!