Car!

In preparation for the big trip to the country to visit my potential new placement next week, I figured that I should get my rear into gear and put my car in for a service (it's been over a year since the last one, I hope my former mechanic in Hobart isn't reading this!), and also to have a rear wheel bearing replaced (which I am assuming is on the opposite side to the one that was replaced when I was on placement in Launceston about 18mths ago).

I am lucky enough to have a Goodyear service centre just a few hundred metres up the road from me, so, after being a little underwhelmed after using a mobile mechanic for the last service, I thought I would use this place this time round and see how it goes. When I dropped the car in this morning, and reminded the guy about the wheel bearing, he asked me what made me think I needed a wheel bearing replaced?

My very technical response, "because it's making the noise cars make when a wheel bearing is on the way out." (sometimes it seems that mechanics really do think women are stupid when it comes to cars, but I'm sure my response impressed him :-)

Anyway, I left the car, with the expectation that the day's work would cost me in the ball-park of around $350. (you can guess what's coming, can't you?).

Later in the morning, I received a call from the mechanic, telling me that both my rear tyres are very worn, and really need to be replaced. I was a little surprised, as I tend to keep an eye on the tyre wear, and hadn't noticed they were particularly bad... but I have been a bit vague about such things lately, so, after asking how much extra this would cost, I asked him to go ahead.

About an hour before I was due to collect the car, I had another call. This time, bearing news that when he was replacing the wheel bearing, the mechanic had noticed that the rear axle was bent. "This would explain why your tyres are worn, as a bent axle really causes you to chew through tyres". When he said that, I remembered how frequently I've needed to replace tyres since I've had this car, and now suspect that the axle must have been bent all this time, and this was the first mechanic to notice it.

He told me that it would be a waste of money to put new tyres on the car if the axle wasn't replaced too. So, with fear and trepidation, I once again asked him the $ question. He replied that the cost of the part, and fitting, would be between $450-500. So all up, I'm going to have to fork out around $1000 this week on my car.

Interestingly, I had been thinking seriously about getting a new car when I move to the country- especially if I end up needing to do lots of driving- as something with a little more power might be more comfortable to drive than my current little baby, which is a whole 1.3 litres of pure "grunt" (because that's what it does when it has to go up steep hills- it grunts and groans a bit).

However, after spending this much on the car, I might just hold onto it for a bit longer (after all, it does have fantastic fuel economy), and so I struck a compromise and joined the RACV instead (it's only taken me nearly 3 years to get around to joining!). I guess next week's trip from Melbourne out to meet with the JNC will give me an indication of how well the car will cope with that particular trip, which may end up becoming a fairly regular route for me next year.