Servicing the Car

Today is one of those days I dread almost above all others.

I have to take Agnes's car in for repair.

You might not think this is such a terrifying event in and of itself, but trust me: it is.

First of all, this isn't just any car. It's a supercharged 1996 Pontiac Bonneville SSEi ("Luxury with attitude," according to the old ad campaign). It goes from zero to jail in about 4.2 seconds, has front leather Recaro seats that recline nearly flat (not so good if you're the one in the back seat), and gets surprisingly good gas mileage for a car with an engine the size of an average Toyota. It's very comfortable on long drives. Agnes loves it.

And almost anything you do to it in the way of maintenance ends up costing about the annual GDP of Botswana.

Agnes, wonderful lady that she is, tends to be profoundly suspicious of automobile service people. Throbbing veins stand out in her forehead when I tell her the estimate for whatever repairs are required. If large chunks of the car haven't fallen off, or flames aren't coming out of places she doesn't expect to see flames, she's convinced the dealer service folks are trying to sell us unneeded repairs. I can always expect a thorough grilling about whether or not the repairs they want to make are legitimate or not. Since my comfort level with transportation technology maxed out with the supercharged oxcart (two oxen), it's not easy for me to convincingly explain to her that we need to do certain things.

Nowadays, of course, with automakers desperate to sell new cars, I have a sneaking suspicion that they perhaps do ratchet up the cost of maintaining older cars to make you think it's more economical to take on a new monthly car payment instead (Dave Barry used to write about repairmen who would send their assistants back to the office to fetch more zeroes for the estimate whenever he came in). And I'm not sure about those manuals they say they use to calculate how long it takes to do a particular repair...who decides on those figures, anyhow? When you're paying $87,694.99 per hour for labor, it's a legitimate question. And there are, of course, all the extra charges...over the years, the average auto repair bill has started to look like the average cell phone bill, loaded with fine-print charges that spring up on each visit ("used tire disposal fee," "expendable shop material charge," "Hugo Chavez Dale Carnegie Institute tuition," "hazardous materials disposal fee," "mechanics' bail bond fund reimbursement," and so on).

And so I sigh deeply and prepare to drive across town to the last surviving Pontiac dealer, who at this moment is probably sending a flunky out to buy the donuts they put out in the customers' waiting room.

I can eat a lot of donuts for $87,694.99 per hour.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo