car repair

Why I’ll avoid that Coral Gables road in the future

There’s a section of Coral Gables that is the worst. For driving.

There’s a stretch of road, about a mile long, that has torn-up streets and potholes every few feet. No exaggeration.

As I drive down this street – Sunset Drive – I dodge the pitfalls. But the other day, I hit a huge pothole as I was driving home from Whole Foods and my tire exploded! Literally.

I believe the damage to the streets is done by construction equipment – dump trucks, cement trucks and more. The street is not some back alley, it’s lined with multi-million dollar mansions and houses, but it’s under constant renovation and construction. I’m really not sure how these well healed residents don’t complain to the city leaders, who seem to not give a damn.

They don’t have to redo the whole street, but someone to fill in potholes on a fulltime basis would be nice. The total Miami-Dade County is full of potholes, but this one street is one of the worst.

Luckily cars now have no-flat tires. They are airless tires. They eliminate punctures unless your tire explodes, like mine did. But the good part is that I was able to drive on it. You can drive up to about 50 miles on no-flat tires.

There are no spares and no jacks in the car. The first time I had a flat, I went into the trunk to look for the spare, and there was none. The space in the trunk is still there, but it’s empty! I freaked out at first, thinking they left the spare and jack out when I purchased the car! Then I learned about no-flat tires.

The tire gage will go down to zero, to alert you something is up. But the bumpy ride and explosion sound alerted me.

I ended up bring my car to get a new tire, and I was able to drive there without being towed. And that’s the end of that adventure. I won’t be taking Sunset Drive to Whole Foods anymore. I’ll take an alternate route. One that is outside Coral Gables and pothole-free.

I’m laughing about writing about potholes. I remember way back, when I wrote the daily news of our village, I would write about potholes sometimes and people outside the village thought I was crazy writing about a pothole, but it was a big thing, literally and figuratively, for the village. I guess not so much for much larger Coral Gables.

Anyway, $330.00 later, I am back on the road – only not that road, I actually took an alternate route to Whole Foods yesterday.

Till next time . . .

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My cars and I

I went to my mechanic the other day to get some things done with my car – I needed Schedule A service and new tires. Did you know there are “non flat” tires now? They are tires that don’t have a spare tire, they can get flat and drive for up to 75 miles without going flat. You don’t change the tire with a spare or jack, you just get it repaired.

The first time this happened to me, I opened the trunk to change the tire and was freaking out that there was no spare tire or jack in the trunk. I thought they screwed me when I purchased the car, but since I just get in the car and drive it, I didn’t know there was no spare until I needed it.

The mechanic bought my old car during the pandemic – in 2020 and he says he still is using it. It must be 20 years old by now and he says it is running perfectly! At the time, it was dead. It just did not run.

For years I leased a car but got tired of having to turn it in every three years, so I said to no one in particular, “I am going to buy a car now and keep it until I run it into the ground.” And apparently the Universe was listening, because that is what happened. I bought a car and had it for 16 years – I put a lot of money into it over the years with repairs and all, but I never thought of turning it in for a new car. It just never entered my mind. I guess that was part of the Universe’s plans, since I put it into the Universe.

But when it finally was run into the ground, I got a new car and I sold the old one. And the mechanic got it running and it’s still going – it just shows you what a good mechanic can do.

This is the second or third mechanic that has bought one of my cars and I always wondered why. The cars were in for service with them and they know of the issues over the years – so why buy the car? But I guess that’s the answer – they knew the cars and they knew I took care of them even with all their warts. So three of my mechanics over the years, bought my cars when I was ready to sell them!

One car just died because I didn’t maintain it. It was a Camaro. I never put oil it or anything else, so the car just locked up. Like I said, I just get in my cars and drive them. I had the car towed into the garage so many times in the middle of the night that they would just show up in the morning, call me, and ask me what was up this time. They were a block away from where I lived, so it was convenient.

The time the car locked up, they were honest enough at the garage to tell me that the job would cost thousands of dollars, but if I had it towed to the dealership, which was ironically across the street, it wouldn’t cost me anything, because it was still under warranty. So that’s what I did – and it didn’t cost a thing.

I’ve been lucky to have honest and good mechanics over the years.

This last mechanic wants my to buy my current car when I am ready to sell! It’s nice to have a ready built-in buyer.

I often think of selling my condo and I have the same thing here – I have three neighbors who want to purchase my condo – so I have built-in buyers when I’m ready to sell!

Till next time . . .

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It pays to be honest

I saw this cartoon the other day, “Geech,” by Jerry Bittle.

This could have happened to me with my car many years ago, and to this day I am still using the same mechanics.

What happened was, I heard this squeaking sound which I thought were the brakes. So I brought it to a mechanic in the neighborhood. I had never been there before, except to buy gas, and I noticed a sign that said they worked on foreign cars, so I brought my car over.

I told them there was something wrong with the brakes, and I took an Uber home.

They mechanics called me a short time later to tell me there was nothing wrong. But I insisted. I said, “Go look again, I can tell there is something wrong with the brakes.”

They called back a little while later and told me to come and the car, they had checked again and found nothing wrong.

There and then they had my business for life.

They could have said, “We fixed the problem, that will be $750.0o,” and I would have paid it and been on my way. But they did the right thing. Ever since then I’ve been sending everyone their way.

And they got a lot of business from me over the years. I had an older car that needed a lot of work and they did it all.

I would leave the car for everything, they were cheaper than the dealership, of course. I would leave the car and the keys early in the morning with the person working the gas station part of the place. I would block the garage section, so they had to get into my car to move it.

They would always have the car done early in the day and I would go and pick it up and be on with my day.

I finally got a new car and haven’t been by except for small things not under warranty – tires and things like that. And to guy gas.

It pays to be honest.

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