Every year, the car surprises me, adding a little extravagance, new acquaintances and invaluable life experience to my life. Like me, she’s not young anymore. But she’s still capable of surprising. And teach.
I drove off in the direction of the gym. I squatted to my heart’s content and got behind the wheel to drive home. But the car wouldn’t start–not from the fifth, not from the twenty-fifth time. The weather and the battery are to blame for everything, I decided, and I wrote down the list to everyone who could give my battery a light or at least advice.
No sensationalism. Only the neighbor from below responded, who always has time, tools and a man’s willingness to help the girl. He helped me out of all kinds of situations – I go to him for advice, the right contact and help. When the tire was punctured in the parking lot, and I was sick, he took the keys and went to fix it. When the car stalled at an intersection and paralyzed traffic, he rushed in 15 minutes and towed it to the nearest service station. But I don’t abuse it and give others a chance to prove themselves, I write to him when all possible options have been tried.
“Where to go?” – he asked, and after 15 minutes we had already resuscitated the battery. However, 1.5 hours later, the patient was still dead – no, not the battery, everything seemed to be fine with it, but my car. A permanent “attending physician” (my car mechanic), also a gold-plated man, was called in. Right from the children’s tree, with his wife and child, he came to examine the patient. “Everything is very, very strange,” he pronounced the verdict. “Some kind of wire must have died.”
It was impossible to keep the car in the parking lot for more than a day. I was given the number of a good tow truck, which, however, charged a bad price. So, closing my eyes, I poked at the very first ad on Avito. Cheerful Andrey informed me that Sasha would come to me at 8:00 and do everything in the best possible way.
“I am the driver of evacuator 8, we agreed correctly,” the subscriber Vakholob wrote to me half an hour later. I immediately imagined a typical taxi driver who would have to be trusted in this delicate matter. However, after several hours of ritual dancing with the desire to engage in tow truck marketing, it is no longer very good. I went to bed early.
At seven in the morning, I was running towards the inevitable. Alas, the car didn’t start – it just blinked all the lights on the dashboard. Sasha, aka Zukha, deftly pulled her onto a tow truck and entertained her with conversations about Uzbekistan all the way to the technical center. After unloading the car at the service, purely by chance, I got behind the wheel and… tad – it started the first time. Of course, I’m capable of a lot, but several people who are professionally versed in cars also tried to start it and even gave up. And now, two days later, without any difficulties, the car starts up immediately after a scenic trip along the Yauza embankment on a tow truck. Diagnostics did not reveal any errors. I left her outside for one more night to watch. And in the morning, it started up again with the first turn of the key. She is cheerful and cheerful, chattering as if nothing had happened.
It feels like a ride to the parking lot. Money is a pity, of course. And time. But, as they say, thank you for being alive. Yes, and the Buzzer has earned.
All this happened on Christmas Day, but history repeated itself a year later, in the spring. I was on a business trip, and on my return, the car had an “aggravation” again. Having withstood all the winter frosts, it did not start up in the spring thaw after five days of downtime.
As usual, I arranged a casting of the characters, no, a collective consultation, inviting everyone to come with me to the car to explore her inner world. The neighbors were the first to be mobilized. The neighbor from above scratched his head and advised me to take him to the service. Good, valuable advice, equal to the cost of calling a tow truck.
I’ve collected a few more recommendations from gawking peasants in the style of a culinary encyclopedia. Take, for example, advice No. 4061: “When hunters bring a lot of wild ducks in the summer, they must be cleaned, spread out, salted in barrels, covered, salted, buried in ice.” Who should be buried in the ice, hunters or ducks, was not clarified by the advice of motorists. They were more like fortune–telling on cards – they promised a long journey, financial losses, hemorrhoids and no guarantees.
Finally, the advice was given to replace the battery. Of course, it also occurred to me. That’s the first thing I think about a car. In my worldview, all equipment is treated either by rebooting or replacing the battery. But the car showed signs of life, each time showing a different combination of lights on the dashboard. And confused the advisers.
And then the day came when it wouldn’t open with a key. It really was a dead battery. On the same day, I flew away on a business trip. Therefore, upon my return, I realized that I could only rely on myself and an unknown volunteer with wires.
“I’m looking for someone who will give fire to my battery,” I wrote on my blog. A familiar father with many children responded the fastest. Just two minutes, and I’m ready to go about my business.
So I come back from the tour, get behind the wheel, and there’s another surprise with the ignition. My first thought: I should have changed the battery a year ago. I caught a volunteer with wires in the parking lot. He honestly tried, lighting up the battery even from two cars with different sets of wires. But unsuccessfully, the starter did not work. Then I dialed the cherished number of my car angel neighbor from below. “I’ll be there in three minutes,” I heard the words any woman dreams of in such a situation.
It’s one thing to try to help, but it’s another to really figure out the problem. The neighbor rolled up his sleeves, reached into the bowels of the hood and found it – a broken battery terminal wire. He spat, whispered, and voila – by some miracle he joined it. That was enough to bring the car to life. I knew there would be no second miracle. Without turning off the engine, I rushed to the nearest service. 1,500 rubles – and the problem was solved. “That’s a neighbor! – the car mechanics gasped. “We should have such a staff!”
Just imagine: for several years this wire has been rotting, thinning and conducting less and less electricity. During the crisis moments of cold weather or long downtime, trash happened, but without knowing the essence, it was possible to maintain the status quo on pure luck. The mechanics shook their heads, believing that the problem was in the battery. And the real reason all this time was deeper.
Life, like this car story, often teaches us that apparent well-being can be held together by the fragile threads of our illusions. Problems are brewing quietly, under the hood of familiar reality. And we all light up our hopes and drive on until something finally falls off. And it will reveal the true state of affairs, which has been ignored for a very long time.
Take care of your “wires”. Appreciate those who are ready to help not with words, but with deeds. And remember, the most important breakdowns happen unnoticed, and the biggest changes happen too. But it can be controlled. And it is not always necessary to change the car, sometimes it is enough to find a broken wire in time.