Car go VROOM VROOM!

...OR MAYBE NOT!!!???


When we got the car - I was told that the heater core needed replacing. A helpful friend who is mechanically inclined (pictured at right), unhooked the leaky heater core and routed the hoses past it - until we could afford to get it fixed when we could afford it. This prevented the heater from "working" and blasting hot steamy anti-freeze at us inside the car. But this was just the first of our problems.

Knowing that we had a big trip ahead of us (about 4 hours north to visit Friends who were leaving for the States) I asked the "people-in-the-know" about getting the car fixed. Bruce, local info-source (and coincidentally, the nice guy who added air to my flat tire, and plugged one of my spark plug wires back in when the car was running rough and after listening to the engine for only a second... he realized it was only firing on three cylinders) said it would be a good idea to have "our" local mechanic check the car out from top to bottom - better to do that right after you buy a used car here so you can know what problems are coming down the road and nip them in the bud if you can. So, when we got the news back about the car... well... I am glad we are here and not back in the states! The price of all the repairs needed would've meant "Get a new car" back home. Here, it's fifty bucks in labour (for a full three days work) and all the rest is the cost of parts straight accross. Here's a list of what was fixed: new freeze plugs, new radiator and heater core (the old ones had rust-cancer... sound familiar? That's what was happening to my van in the states!) both of which were made from scratch, a tire repair, new break pads on the front, new air and oil filters, and new oil and anti-freeze, repair to a leaky window, new spark plugs... I think that was it. The grand total was about $500 USD.

But, it all got done in time to safely drive it up North for the weekend. And back again! It even has a CD player that works!