Car Repairs

During the trip back from New York to Waterloo, my car developed a leak or hole in the exhaust system. I sounded like a small truck jake-braking while heading up hills; I had to turn up the stereo pretty loud. Also, I started worrying about carbon monoxide... "Am I feeling kinda sleepy and headachy, or is that just paranoia?... hmmm... time to drive with the windows open..."

So as fun as it would be to have a Subaru station wagon with pimpin' phat pipes, I decided that fixing it might be the wiser plan. My initial thought was to see if I could fix it myself--some type of kluge repair involving muffler tape and hose clamps. However, given how unpleasant it would be to crawl under my car in this weather, I decided just to take it to the local Midas.

They put it up on the lift, and found a problem with the front pipe, between the header (where the two pipes coming off the engine merge) and the catalytic converter (i.e., the pipe between the "two blobby things"). They said the gaskets were shot, but that it was likely that they would have to replace the pipe, since the flanges might not survive the procedure.



To orient yourself, those are the front wheels in this picture. In case you're wondering, I'm enough of a geek that I asked the shop, "Could I take a few photos of the underbody of my car while you have it up on the lift?" It is likely that Canada has fewer frivolous lawsuits by stupid people, since they said yes.

Anyway, they called me later that day, and said they just replaced the gaskets, and they did it for free ($0.00 CAD). I was astounded. They said the repair might not last for all that long, but given that I am but a starveling graduate student (ok, who has nice consulting contracts on the side once in a while), I appreciated that solution. I wondered why they didn't charge anything--the parts they had to use cost ~$80. My best guess is that given the lack of confidence they have in the repair, it is not worth their while to give an implied warranty by charging for the work. Pretty weird how things work like that, but for now, I'm happy.

So for my two passengers this weekend (who both read this blog)--hey, I'm not going to give us carbon monoxide poisoning on the trip! Yay! (This is coming from somebody who once drove from Boston to New York with his muffler dragging along the ground, until a road plate ripped it off on the Hutchinson River Parkway. And my sister was in the car too... that was extra fun.)