Monday, February 07, 2005
Cars do funny things when they get old. Especially in winter. This is a list of things that happen to my car. Its a scientific marvel.
- when the temperature gets below -20degC it will start fine but if you turn it off within 5 minutes of starting it won't start up again for at least half an hour. Thus coffee 'to go' quickly becomes coffee 'to stay'.
- The exception to this rule is about 20% of the time you can get it to restart if you press the break pedal down really hard right after you stop it.
- between -10degC and 5degC the coolant fluid leaks out and you have to refill it every third day or the car will overheat.
- when the car overheats the headlights burn out.
- at really cold temperatures, like lower then -25degC, it won't go in reverse unless its been driven in a forward gear first. Thus you have to back it up into parking spots.
- at certain moon intervals the coolant fluid leaks into the heating system and fills the front seat with a thick, green, antifreeze fog.
- At 84 km/hr the car hits its resonant frequency and if you leave it at that speed it will begin to shake uncontrollably. Though I can't confirm it, I believe that if you left it at this speed for a good long period (say like a minute) the wheels would fall off.
- there is a loud squeak from the left front wheel that only occurs when you're driving where the road is sloped. Its like a warning reminder that the road isn't perfectly flat.
- The wind shield wipers work perfectly except for a 2 inch square spot where they completely miss. This spot happens to be directly at eye level when I sit down.
- If you try to wipe off that spot on the windshield by hand it only gets worse and pretty soon you'll have to drive around with the window open and your head sticking out. This is unfortunate when its below -20 as you become acutely aware of the magic of wind chill.
- the left signal light turns on when you signal right and the right signal light doesn't come on at all. However this can be prevented by turning off the headlights, which isn't such a bad thing when the car is overheating.
More to come...
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