yet more truck repairs

Saturday night the transmission died on the Vagabond. This is what you call suckful. It continued to drive but was unable to shift through 3rd gear. As such, I had an awkward top speed of about 50mph. This sucked on many levels.

Took it into Bruno’s Garage on Tuesday, where they verified that the transmission was wrecked and quoted me a repair price of $1800. Luckily I have a warranty on the truck that covers that. Unluckily, the Great Lakes Warranty (the company holding the policy) wouldn’t cover that much from Bruno’s (who actually outsources transmission work to Amoco). The warranty company told me I instead had to take it to Cottman Transmission. So I took it there on Wednesday evening and dropped it off. (They were actually already closed when I did so, and I put the key in their mail slot and they said they’d look at it first thing in the morning).

Surprisingly, the entire thing was finished by 5pm on Thursday. Actually, apparently it was done even earlier, the mechanic told me when he called me at 5 that he had looked at it early in the morning and installed the rebuilt transmission before the warranty company even opens. Apparently he does a lot of work with Great Lakes and just trusts them to be good with the bill. He had a rebuilt transmission that he had completed last week sitting on the shelf and dropped it right in. The annoying thing was that he waited til 5 to call me, and they closed at 6. So I had to have Steph come pick me up at work and try to rush me there through rush hour traffic. It became clear around 5:45 that we were never going to make it in time so I called and asked them to wait for me. They said no. They also said they were unwilling to just lock it up and let me pick it up after they closed (I have an extra key). So we kept pushing and trying to get there on time, even though I knew we’d never make it.

At around 6, he called me again and asked if I was still on my way. I said yes, and he said he’d see me when I got there. When I got there, he told me I had gotten lucky. Someone else had come to pick up a car they had worked on and prompty drove it straight into another car they were working on. Thus they were forced to wait around and file a police report, so they were still there when I got there.

Drove it home, and it shifting easier than ever, I’m quite annoyed with all the repairs I’ve had to do lately, but I guess its bettter that everything in the vehicle break down now, while its still under warranty and gets replaced than after the warranty expires. Final bill $1000, completely covered by the warranty. I think I paid about $200 for the warranty when I bought the Vagabond. Thus far I have probably used it to cover, I think a bit over $2000 worth of repairs.