Auto relations

Yesterday, while driving through tourist-filled Manchester, Vermont, the car’s brakes gave out. Pedal to the floor, a guttural noise coming from under the hood, oh sh*t. I didn’t think this happened to 21^st century cars. I shifted into low and steered away from pedestrians.

Fortunately, I was less than a mile from the mechanic’s, the same mechanic who allegedly fixed the worn brakes last week.

I pulled into his lot without rear-ending an Audi wagon, put the car in park, turned off the ignition, and breathed a sigh of relief. I had killed no one, not even myself.

Turns out a caliper screw had come loose, which allowed all the brake fluid to leak out. The mechanic tightened the screw, poured more fluid into the reservoir, and sent me on my way with instructions to call immediately if the brake light came on.

I drove straight to my husband's office and asked to trade cars.

So yes, I’m a complete girl when it comes to car trouble, no doubt because my first car was broken more often than not. This is not how it’s supposed to be. Cars, like marriages, are just supposed to work, especially late-model cars. Yes, they both require regular maintenance and upkeep. But given that, they should function without a hitch. Right? No alternator failure on a cold afternoon in the mountains, or a busted U-joint in rush hour traffic.

It all started after college when I began a 10-year, 100,000-mile relationship with one of the few lemons ever produced by Toyota — a used 1981 Corolla with sunburned blue paint. In the decade I drove this car, I went through two water pumps (one failure requiring a tow truck), three batteries (each guaranteed “for life”), two transmissions (one installed the day I started grad school and cost half my student loan), two clutches, and an alternator, which kindly gave out in the driveway.

I also learned what a distributor vacuum pump does and that if it breaks, the car won’t drive faster than 10 mph. This happened in a blizzard outside Salida, Colorado. I spent the night in a cheap motel, wiled away 6 hours the next day at the Toyota dealer while they couldn’t find the problem, limped home (a one-hour drive that took four), and found a love note from the dealer’s mechanic in the glove box the next day.

Another time, the thermostat broke in Phoenix in June. In 100-degree heat, I drove home to Tucson (a 90-minute drive) with the heat on and windows open.

The car didn’t much care for cold either. If the temperature dipped below 20 degrees, it wouldn't started.

Then there was the valve cover that blew over Vail Pass. Fortunately, the oil light didn’t come on until an hour later when I was only 10 minutes from home. Did I immediately stop as my father had always instructed? Nope. But I did make it home.

And all this after I regularly fed it super unleaded gas and STP, changed its oil every 3,000 miles, purchased a custom-fit dashmat to protect the vinyl from the harsh western sun, and often vacuumed the interior and polished its dull paint. It was like living with a psychotic person who occasionally forgot to take his meds.

After 10 years of torment and tears (often beside the road far from home and long before cellphones), I finally sold the car to a local high school girl who covered the rear bumper with Nine Inch Nails stickers, and I was able to afford a 1991 Subaru wagon previously owned (and sold by) a Christian family. After Toyota the Terrible, the Blue ‘Ru was as reliable as my father.

Then came the evil Passat. It was the first brand new car I ever owned. But it compromised my trust almost from our first date. Within the first week, the air conditioning button on the dash got stuck on (in November). The dealer replaced it, but I was left to wonder what would go wrong next. Six years later, just about everything had — including the front fairing dropping off from its underbelly as I drove along a dirt road in Vermont. I once left it parked and unlocked overnight on a street in Boston. Come morning, it was still there, right where I'd left it, as if somewhere it had a note to car thieves: "Don't steal me, you'll regret it."

I finally outright refused to drive it after the STOP, BRAKE FAULT light flashed red on the dashboard, and no one could figure out why, not even the dealer who charged us over $500 despite fixing nothing. We traded it for a Toyota Prius, a cute little car that looks like a hamster. It gets the garage now (although this comfortable parking spot never did much for the Passat). A year into the relationship, the Prius still has my trust.

But the Prius has become Andy’s car, given its good gas mileage and his daily 62-mile commute. And I am left with the seven-year-old Highlander and its suspicious brakes. Maybe what it needs is a name — something like Goldie or Rusty or Bob. Would it feel like part of the family then? And thus less inclined to carry us to our deaths?

Or is this yet another relationship destined for the junk heap?