jay: (sunglasses)
jay ([personal profile] jay) wrote2005-02-21 03:20 am

Well... *that* scraped...

I'm just now home after spending nearly two hours stranded along US101 in East Palo Alto... after an otherwise-pleasant evening with [personal profile] tenacious_snail in Berkeley, I headed home around 12:40am, a bit late. At 1:15, just after passing the IKEA store, suddenly the Mustang's tachometer goes to zero. No bang or bump, slight oil smell, engine brakes as though I'd put it in low. I eased it to the right shoulder. Wouldn't restart. It's pouring rain outside, in the dark. I call and wake [profile] patgreene at home a few miles away, who mumbles thanks for calling in and goes back to sleep.

I didn't have my road service card, so I had to call my insurance company and get them to transfer me. The road service agent took down my location and particulars and told me 30-45 minutes, at 1:30am. At 2am she calls back to inform me that the towing company had refused the pickup because I was out of their service area (the idiots had booked a company in Burlingame, not bothering to ask me what city was closest.). After a few minutes on hold, the agent tells me that they now have a local Mountain View tow truck coming... in another 45 minutes. Still raining. Trucks sweeping by at high speeds cause the car to shudder. I've got everything except the hazard flasher shut off to conserve power, because I don't know how long I'll be stuck out there, or the battery life.

At 2:45am a tow truck shows up (he says that he'd only gotten the call from his dispatch 15 min earlier) and takes the car to the shop we use, then kindly drops me near my house. Sigh... now to worry about what's wrong with the car, and the cost of repairs... hopefully just an electrical short, given all of the rain.

[identity profile] western-slope.livejournal.com 2005-02-21 01:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Glad you made it home safely. With the rains we've been having here, it could have been REALLY bad.

[identity profile] tenacious-snail.livejournal.com 2005-02-21 03:28 pm (UTC)(link)
yikes! Oh dear!

*hug*

Glad you are home safe. And I hope that the car is okay (eek, that one, more of a headache than had been intended, eh?)

[identity profile] brian1789.livejournal.com 2005-02-24 02:19 am (UTC)(link)
Busted alternator, it turns out. Simply disintegrated while driving...

[identity profile] cjsmith.livejournal.com 2005-02-21 05:37 pm (UTC)(link)
What a night! :-( I'm glad you finally did get a tow. Mumblegrble road service foo.

[identity profile] dawnd.livejournal.com 2005-02-21 06:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Bummer.

((hugs))
geekchick: (Default)

[personal profile] geekchick 2005-02-21 09:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Glad to hear you got home safe (and now the text message makes much more sense). Hopefully whatever's wrong with the car can be quickly and cheaply repaired.

[identity profile] brian1789.livejournal.com 2005-02-24 02:21 am (UTC)(link)
It wasn't *too* bad, not a blown engine or anything.

At the time, sitting in the dark beside the road, I messaged you because you were the only SO that I thought might remotely have been still up ;^).