The 2 Cars Story
By popular demand (what is wrong with you people? all you want are the bad stories!!!), this is the 2 Cars Story. I arrived in Las Vegas on May 31, had a fun night, and stayed in one of the town hostels. The next morning I drove around in search of a place to get my oil changed. I settled for a place called Econo Lube N' Tune. Mental note: never do business with a place that can't spell out the word "And." I left the establishment heading for Hoover Dam, but 10 miles down the interstate something peculiar happened. I was cruising at 70 mph when all of a sudden the car went into neutral. It's an automatic. The shifting mechanism didn't work. I pulled over and called for help, first the oil change guys. They sent out a mechanic who checked my oil and pronounced that the oil is not the problem. Hardly grateful for this (any idiot can tell that the oil level doesn't affect the transmission) I called a tow truck to the local Subaru dealership. They readily diagnosed the problem. They asked if I'd recently had an oil change, to which I said yes. They pointed out the front differential plug, located very close to the oil drain plug. They pointed out the missing washer on the differential plug, and told me it looked like the oil change guys drained my front differential by mistake. To those of you not too familiar with cars, the differential is the fluid that lubricates the drive axle, and since the Subaru is all wheel drive, it has a front and rear differential. Without this lubricant, my transmission melted. There were bits of it leaking out of the plug. They told me it'd be 2 weeks, and about $5,000 for a new transmission.
Needless to say I wasn't too happy with this predicament. It was the day before that I'd driven through Death Valley in 120 degree heat. The car'd been fine for the first 20,000 miles of the trip, was it just a coincidence it broke down 10 miles after the oil change, or perhaps did they screw something up? At the time I was furious, this was the first major upset of the trip. I spent the day on the phone, talking to the Subaru guys, back and forth, figuring surely this would work itself out, surely the oil change guys would realize their mistake and be good, honorable people. But no. They were dicks. Las Vegas isn't my kinda town, and I wanted out. The Subaru guys said they'd help me out with a trade-in, so several test drives later, I upgraded my 2001 Forester with a 2003. I played the Nevada BBB game with Econo, but that accomplished nothing. At this point I'm over it, I'd thought about a law suit but at this point it's just not worth it. Anyway, that's the story.
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