the little car

[chhotii]

Now has come the time to take the VW in for service: we are approaching 80K miles, which means timing belt changing time, along with oil change and all that. On top of that, the little car seems sluggish these days, and not good with the fuel economy. Wonder if the mice that nest in the engine compartment have managed to clog something up? And, it's been on my mind for the past nearly 10K miles that I took it to Jiffy Lube instead of the dealer for an oil change, and while they probably used the right oil, they almost certainly didn't drain the water separator (whatever that is) and I can't figure out from the TDI forum whether that's a big problem. Oh, the obscurity of a diesel car.

I feel like ABJ has earned my loyalty by nicely fixing the shifting problem when they were too busy to actually charge me any money for that wonderful bit of work. Too busy to use the credit-card reader, but not too busy to use the long screw driver. ! They knew I'd be back, though, with a nice expensive timing belt ready to be changed. But, gosh, they are a bit chaotic and hard to deal with. I called to try to make an "appointment" for the car. "Hi, yes, I have a 2002 Volkswagen Golf TDI, at almost 80,000 miles..." Whoever answered the phone didn't want to hear all this. I think he just wanted me to get off the phone so he could get back to work. So, could I bring it in on Thursday?... He wasn't going to take my name or anything, just told me to bring it in *early*. Hrmpf. Well, I am driving Sophia to the gymnasium tomorrow morning, so I can't get up and go straight to Somerville. So, no, *early* I cannot do. This might mean I will have missed my chance to fit my car into ABJ's overcrowded parking lot tomorrow. Undecided whether to even try to get the car in there tomorrow, or whether to just punt that into next week.

Comments

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

i like amherst auto, in, you guessed it, amherst NH, a bit of a haul for you... but they know VW and are top rate.

i'd shop around on the timing belt. find some local guys. who want your biz. NOW! :)

TDIs are fun, but sadly, vw wasn't for me this time round.

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[chhotii.livejournal.com]

Heh, I'm guessing it would be a really long walk to get from the place in NH to a bus that would take me to Cambridge. So that would be, uh, inconvenient, yeah.

[ceo]

I never bother to make an appointment with ABJ, because they almost always say "just bring it in anytime".

[chhotii.livejournal.com]

But does "anytime" include "any time of the day"? Assuming I want to just leave it there, rather than wait around for the work. (I have heard that Somerville has public transit options.)

[ceo]

Well, I usually bring it in first thing in the morning, then avail myself of said public transit options. The 80 bus goes right past ABJ and goes to Lechmere, and the 89 and 101 to Sullivan are a quarter-mile away. Or they'll happily give you a ride somewhere.

A timing belt swap is non-trivial enough that you're probably not going to want to wait for it.

[frotz.livejournal.com]

I never manage to get there in the morning, but I don't mind leaving it for an extra day so they have it the next morning. Very occasionally they'll be hosed on a given day, but if you call and ask they'll tell you "bring it in" or "could you come tomorrow instead?" I don't think Al plans further out than that.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

If you're hanging out waiting for ABJ, you're welcome to use my wireless down the street.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

abj has wireless. not that one shouldn't take any excuse to visit rmd :)

[rmd.livejournal.com]

do they now? spiffy!

[chhotii.livejournal.com]

Not going to hang around waiting for stuff like the timing belt; I do have to get to Cambridge before *too* late. I'll have to come up with some other devious plan to have an excuse to visit.