Pimp my Ride
Trip Start
Aug 01, 2008
1
54
63
Trip End
Jun 30, 2010
Pointe Noire,
Congo
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
We went for a long while without any worries from our car. We didn't exactly know where we would bring it to get fixed, so that was a good thing. Finally, we knew we had to get around to doing a few minor repairs over the winter vacation (a/c, rear brake light, windshield wiper fluid not squirting...), and luckily our friend Regis also needed to do some work on his car (among other things, he had locked his keys in the car while at the beach and had to resort to smashing a vent window... that needed to be fixed before his wife and kids returned from Paris). So he introduced me to the Lebanese-French brothers, who did what we needed, although the air conditioning was not exactly what you'd call cold. Still, it was blowing better than before so we lived with it okay until there was kind of an explosion the next week and then we were getting what you'd call hot air coming through the blowers.
So they re-attached the hose that blew off, and we were back to lukecold air, which we figured we could live with. Then we had a flat tire - discovered in our driveway, luckily, since we couldn't find a jack or tire iron in the car. So our friend Angela brought her tools over and the guard took care of it for us. But when we brought the car over to the garage to get the tire fixed, I asked Ismael to check the air conditioning to see if they couldn't get it any colder. They returned us the car with a new tire, showing us the old one was ripped beyond repair, but the a/c was back to being kind of warm when we got around to driving the car the next day. They are super nice at the garage, always willing to follow me home and take the car and bring it back to us at the house. They don't even leave a receipt, so we go back when we want to know how much it cost.
So when I went in to tell them it really wasn't working and did they want me to pay for the new tire, Ismael was shocked that the a/c wasn't working. It was just a fuse he said, but he came out to confirm that it wasn't doing the job. I was going to bring it in tomorrow evening so he could repair the latest flat (go figure-- lots of puddles and bumpier roads as a result?) and take care of the a/c, but today the car died on Ann-Mary while she was at the kids' school. A classmate's dad gave them all a lift home, and I went back this afternoon with the mechanic's employees. They tried a new battery to no avail, then recruited some guys from the bar that the car was parked in front of to push-start it. The car that we came in then lost its rear bumper on the puddly bumpy road back to the garage, but the guy shoved it into the back seat, and we continued on our way back. Now they'll have the car back to us tomorrow - a/c hopefully fixed, flat tire repaired, and they're going to give me a jack and tire iron to boot. As a sidenote, our client company bought the car there to begin with, so I think they feel a little bit more obliged to do us right than some anonymous garage might.
Sidenote number two: last weekend I was pulling away from Melanie's house, turning around where a driveway was barricaded with cinder blocks in front of a house under construction, and I drove into a drainage trench! Oops! I never saw it, and of course to either side of the driveway there are bumpers to prevent such an accident. Even with 4 x 4 action, there was no getting out of it, and Angela tried to pull us out with a rope made out some kind of strapping that the guards next door produced, but it snapped on the first try. So we called Regis, the former 18-wheeler trucker (he drove in the States for a few years), and he of course had an appropriate strap but it was Valentine's Day night and he was in the middle of dinner. So we had another drink with Melanie and Angela, and Regis finally showed up to yank us to freedom.
So if we get a jack and a tire iron and a strap or chain to stash in the car, and the flats and the a/c are fixed, and we get a new battery or starter or something, then maybe we can be trouble-free for another couple of months. We feel entirely fortunate to have had all of these incidents happen so close to home (both flat tires discovered in or close to our driveway), so we have no excuse for being unprepared the next time something happens.
