I've been a “car guy” ever since I was a little kid. Not a car guy in the sense that I could tear
down and rebuild an engine, but a car guy in the sense that I have always enjoyed driving and admiring them. When taking a trip in my car, half the fun for
me is the journey to and from the destination.
An antique auto or any kind of unique vehicle on the road will almost
always turn my head, and I find it impossible to just drive past any kind of car
show or display. One of the highlights
of my summer excursions around Maine this year was a day spent at the Owl’s
Head Transportation Museum in the town of Owl’s Head, just outside of Rockland. I could have made it several days, actually.
Because I place such a premium on the car experience, it
makes me kind of edgy when something interferes with that pleasure. You may recall that I addressed this here in this blog a few months ago when my Hyundai Santa Fe developed a mysterious
knock which seemed to be coming from the undercarriage that I could not track
down no matter how hard I tried. It
turned out to be some manner of rod near one of the wheels, according to my
mechanic, who is also likely certified to fly space shuttles. I think this “rod” was actually part of the
flux capacitor or something, and I never would have ferreted it out by myself in
a million years.
Because my Santa Fe is nearing seven years old, I know that
it, like me, is not getting any younger and is bound to develop more frequent health
quirks. Much as I do with my own health,
I sometimes get concerned that the other shoe could drop on my car’s well-being
at any time. Also much like my own
health, I am not so much worried about some major crisis as much as a series of
irritating little ones.
Take, for instance, the plastic covering for the fuse panel,
on the side of the dashboard. It has a
loose fit nowadays, and occasionally falls out onto the ground when the door
opens. If it ever gets lost, I would
probably also lose at least a piece of my mind.
On the other hand, there is no good way to secure it in place short of
duct tape, the sight of which would bother me just as much as having to
constantly watch to make sure the covering doesn't get lost.
And then there are the various and sundry pieces and parts
that are rolling around inside the back door.
When installing a new license plate a few years ago, some washers and
little plasticky things fell inside it, and now rattle around in there whenever
I lift open the door or take a sharp corner.
Taking the door apart myself to retrieve the errant pieces would just be
a recipe for complete and total disaster, and taking it to a mechanic for
something so foolish to someone else would likely be both embarrassing and
expensive. So, I just put on my big boy
pants and deal with it. Not happily,
mind you. Not. At. All.
About a year ago, I got a pen wedged inside the ashtray,
preventing it from opening. I don’t
smoke unless someone sets me on fire, so it seemed at first like a good place to keep a
pen. I often have need of one while on
the road and can rarely locate one quickly.
And a good place for a pen it was, for quite some time actually, until
one day I went to open up the ashtray/pen receptacle while at a drive-through
ATM with a line of cars behind me. It
was well and truly jammed. No amount of
jiggling, finagling or cajoling could get it to open, and the line behind me
was growing longer and more impatient. I left without completing any of my banking
tasks and immediately pulled into a nearby parking spot. I spent nearly an hour on every strategy short
of explosives to get it open. At long
last it did pop free, with no damage to the ashtray/now-former pen receptacle. It’s a good thing too, because if I had to
look at a broken ashtray every time I got in the car, I’d probably have to sell
it immediately, probably at a loss, just to get it out of my sight.
My latest potential vehicle crisis emerged a few days
ago. There was a tiny but highly irritating rattling sound
coming from somewhere inside the cabin whenever I drove over rough roads, which
are not unusual things to encounter in northern Maine.
First, I checked the storage compartments, of which my Santa
Fe has more than a herd of kangaroos. I store plenty of stuff in most of them,
like CDs, charging units, my GPS, manuals, a small rubber lizard that came with
a great drink I had in the Old Port in 1996, as well as the typical flotsam and
jetsam that accumulate in a vehicle like paper clips, receipts, gum and the
like. I secured anything and everything that
looked like it might be loose and headed back out on a bumpy street.
The rattle was still there! Drat.
(Yes, I really did say "drat".)
(Yes, I really did say "drat".)
Perhaps some part of the vehicle itself was loose, I thought.
Since I could only hear it when I was driving, which is a less-than-ideal time
to be crawling around looking, I recruited a friend to drive while I attempted
to pinpoint the problem. The thing was,
when I was in the back seat, it sounded like the rattle was coming from the front,
and when I was in the front, it sounded like it was coming from the back. We switched places, and I had my friend try
to find the source of the rattle.
Nothing. After exhausting my
friend’s patience as well as half a tank of gas, I concluded that it wasn’t a loose
part either.
By this point, I had endured the phantom rattle for three
days and seemed no closer to locating the source. I was within inches of deciding to sell the
car for scrap when fate, as it so often does, led me to Dunkin Donuts. Treating
my friend to coffee was on my agenda, and as I got to the drive-through window,
I went for my wallet in the glove compartment.
You see, once in a while I keep my wallet in there, along
with the vehicle manual and other car-related papers. Nothing loose though. It’s a pain to fish anything out of there
when driving, so the glove compartment doesn't accumulate nearly the amount of
stuff that the other ones do. I was so
sure that there was nothing rattle worthy in there that I hadn't even bothered
to check it thoroughly.
As I shut the glove compartment, I heard it. The rattle.
Thankfully, no one was in line behind us, so I asked the coffee guy to
wait for just a second, as I unbuckled my seat belt and reached over to pull
everything out onto my friend’s lap.
Under the manuals and paperwork, I found a quarter, which had likely slipped
out of my wallet. It had to be the culprit!
I gave a fist-pump of victory accompanied by a loud “Yussss!”
The coffee guy looked at me as though I had lost my
sanity. My friend knew that particular train
had left the station a long time ago and just rolled her eyes, a reaction I
tend to get a lot, especially from women. Regardless, the latest rattle crisis was resolved. I have driven in rattle-free bliss ever since.
Winter’s coming, and no doubt new rattles and knocks will be
popping up in my car. Cold weather seems
to foster them. So if you see me pulled
over on the side of the road frantically fishing around the vehicle, don’t
worry. Probably something has come
loose. Whether it’s in the vehicle cabin
or in my head is a matter of debate, I guess.
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