So it leaves me wondering, when and where did she snap? Why did such a good little van start my eye to twitching and my hairs to falling out (they are actually probably falling out because I have not showered in days, but I am going to place the blame on the van).
A little over a week ago I took her to her limit and briefly ignored all the physics classes I have ever taken in my life. Turns out four people, three kayaks and speeding on a gravel road with sharp turns ends up exactly how you would expect. Lady Luck was on our side though and we stayed upright and physically unhurt, all except Myrtle. She appeared to shake off the spin out just fine, but a few hours later she got a flat tire at the take out.
Unfortunately it was raining. Of the two days of rain we’ve had the entire two months in New Zealand, one day has to be when we are stuck in sheep paddock with a flat tire at 9 pm on Galen’s birthday. Also unfortunate, our spare had a flat as well. So we spent the night in the sheep paddock.
We sorted Myrtle out just fine, got her two new tires and headed down south to Queenstown. By this point we had just put her up for sale on Trade Me, the New Zealand version of Craigslist with a twist. Now I guess I didn’t say this at the start, but Myrtle has always been a bit temperamental She never started in park. She would start at a sweet spot in between neutral and reverse. In a month and a half Galen and I had never been stuck anywhere, but there had been some moments of frustration.
Back to the story. So in Queenstown we take her in to get serviced and ask the mechanic if he wouldn’t mind taking a look at the starting issue. In our eyes it wasn’t an issue, but we wanted to tell people what it was, in case our potential buyers weren’t keen on learning the sweet spot. He said he would have a look, after all, it couldn’t get worse, right?
She did. She wouldn’t even start. Finally we got her to start in between neutral and drive, but it was not reliable and we were not able to start her every time. The mechanic showed Galen how to bypass the inhibitor switch (which he believed was the problem) by crawling under the car and touching two wires together. All I could think of was showing the car to people and trying to explain.
“This car runs like a dream, has two new tires, its diesel, relatively new and really only has one minor mechanical issue. You want to go for a test drive? No problem. If you just wait my boyfriend will crawl under the car and start it for you. I’ll throw him in for an extra $1000, he’ll get you started every time.”
As you can see, Myrtle’s acting up was not going to go well for selling this vehicle or for my relationship. That’s when the eye twitching really began.
We had to resolve this issue. After days of phone calls to all the used parts dealerships in New Zealand to find out that we could get an inhibitor switch in ten days time (the day we leave the country) we took Myrtle to yet another auto electric man in Wanaka. Hours passed and we sat, dreading to hear the worst. Instead we received one of the best texts of my life, “Van all set to go, cost $160”.
He fixed her, we think. She has acted up once but other than that now starts in park and neutral. Now I am just scared to drive her. This ordeal has been a good reminder as to why I don’t have a car in the states. Even the most trusty of vehicles are just waiting for a good moment to turn on you.
On another note, anybody looking to buy a van in New Zealand?
where is kiki 