A Truck is a Terrible Thing to Waste

As if Microsoft hasn’t given me enough reasons to continue to postpone my purchase of a 360, I now have non-gaming-related reasons to keep me from dropping half a grand on “toys”.  My friggin’ truck just died on me.  :(

You may have seen my blog entry about buying this truck several months ago.  To recap: it is a 1984 Dodge Ram 150 with a 5.2 Litre V8, painted in silver and red.  I love my truck.  I got a good deal on it when I bought it, I put new tires on it, and 3 weeks ago I got the air conditioner fixed (just a few days before the temperature here in Birmingham peaked at 105).  I wasn’t driving it hard, my commute is only about 12 miles on some gently sloped back roads where I hardly get much over 45 mph.  It’s a cool old truck, and here in Alabama that’ll get you about as much attention as driving a Ferrari.  Except that you get a lot of head nods and “nice truck”s from middle-aged men instead of eye bats and hair tosses from college girls.  Whatever.  I’m a happily married man, so what would it matter if some hot chick thought I had a nice car.  I’d much rather get an approving nod from one of the local NASCAR fanatics, because good ole boys are good people to know when you get into a tight spot.  These fellas wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for some greasy looking yuppie in a Bimmer (“wouldn’t piss on ‘im if he was on fire”, as they say), but if you drive a vintage pick-up they would probably loan you the use of their roto-tiller for nothing more than the cost of a sincere “thanks” and a handshake.  Social networking here in Alabama works a lot differently than in some of the more “citified” regions of this fair nation.

Anyway, I’ve only had the truck for a few months, but it was serving me well, right up until yesterday morning.  I was about half-way to work when I noticed what looked like steam coming out from under my hood when I stopped at a red-light.  I then noticed that the needle on my engine temperature gauge was moving pretty quickly towards the “H”.  By the time the light turned green and I was able to turn into the first available neighborhood about 300 yards away, the amount of smoke and steam had increased to a level that made it hard to see, and there were ominous sputtering and gurgling sounds accompanied by an intoxicating array of noxious smells.  Truly, it was a sensory overload.  I pulled to the side of the impeccably manicured street, threw the gear shift into park, switched off and removed the key.  But to my surprise the truck WOULD NOT STOP RUNNING!  I began having flashbacks to the movie adaptation of “Christine”.  Was my own truck going to attempt to kill me?  Had it become possessed by some unholy demon that could not be destroyed by conventional means?  More importantly, where the hell should I go to be safe?  If I stayed in the truck I would surely be overcome by the toxic vapors billowing from the engine (or at the very least increase my future risk of developing lung cancer), but if I got out of the vehicle I might actually get run down by the hell-spawned, smoking hulk of rolling Detroit steel. 

Quite a predicament for an otherwise mundane Tuesday morning.  Moments earlier, the most troubling thought on my mind was whether I should have pop-tarts or instant grits for breakfast when I got to work.  But now I was faced with what seemed an inescapable Catch-22.  I could remain where I was and suffocate, or try to flee and possibly wind up getting crushed to death under brand-spankin’ new steel-belted radials that I PAID FOR!  I was not in the mood for such life-and-death decisions, so I flipped a mental coin and decided that getting out of the truck would probably be the safest thing to do, so long as I stood to one side of  the truck (NOT in front or behind) and stayed upwind of the smoke.

So there I was, in the middle of some perfect, cookie-cutter uppercrust neighborhood, standing next to a steaming wreck that looked and sounded as if it could explode at any minute.  I pulled out my cell phone, called my wife to tell her to find a tow truck company, and then just stood there to wait.

After a few minutes the truck gave a final heaving splutter, backfired twice (which scared me so bad I nearly soiled myself) and then fell ominously silent, except for the soft wheeze of steam that continued to vent from some unseen orifice.  My fear for my life was replaced by sadness.  I felt like I had just watched an old friend pass away…

Oh, screw that sentimental horseshit!  I was sad because I knew I was about to have to spend an ass-ton of money.  There is no such thing as a cheap auto repair to begin with, and I was pretty sure that I was going to be looking at a STEEP bill.  And unfortunately, I was right.

I got the diagnosis today, and I’m not a car expert, so if I screw up the description you will have to forgive me.  It appears that there was some sort of defect in the header or gasket that was allowing compression gasses to be pumped directly into the radiator.  (I had no idea this was even possible.)  Apparently this can sometimes result in oil in your radiator, or coolant in your engine, but in my case what happened is that the air was pumping all the water out of my radiator.  Empty radiator = no cooling = overheating = very bad day for Cranefolder’s retirement account.  For those of you who don’t understand any of that description (and I’m not sure I even understand it myself) the layman version is that my engine is DEAD and must be replaced.

Sure, you could try to rebuild or repair it, but the prevalence of complete remanufactured engines (aka: crate engines) on the market today means it is probably cheaper and a whole lot quicker just to yank out the bad heart and stuff in a new one.  Plus you get a warranty that is a lot better than what you get on standard repair work.  Oddly enough, I had considered doing this anyway when I bought the truck, but I was hoping to delay it for a year or two. However, the timetable for this “upgrade” has been advanced considerably.  Like to right-friggin-now.

Fortunately I have some family members who are not as ignorant about cars as I am so I pestered them for some advice, and I have a good mechanic that I think I can trust to do the work.  Both the outsiders I consulted and the mechanic who has my car recommended that I go with a Jasper engine.  (http://www.jasperengines.com)  They cost a little more, but since so much of the cost of this repair is in the labor, it doesn’t make sense to try to cheap out on the parts.  Especially when that “part” is really THE part, as in THE part that makes your car a car and not a piece of lawn art.

At first I balked at the cost of the repair.  (I could almost buy a 360 every month for a year for this kinda cheddar.)  BUT, when I broke it down into monthly installments over a year it isn’t any worse than making a car payment.  And I’ll be done paying for it in a year.  So I signed up for a new Visa card that will have a 0% rate for the first year, and I’ll just put the whole thing on there and pay it off in 12 easy pieces.  OK, maybe not easy pieces, but certainly easier on my bank account.   I wouldn’t be able to sell the truck for anything in its current condition, so if I opted NOT to fix it I would actually come off a lot worse.  I would lose all the money I have put into the truck, plus I would have to buy something else, and this time I would be back in the market for a newer vehicle.  Something with a warranty and monthly payments for the next half-decade.  That really isn’t what I want.  I just need a vehicle that is reliable enough to drive 12.5 miles, twice a day, 5 days a week, and the occasional 5 mile trip to Home Depot on the weekend.

Maybe fixing the truck isn’t the best idea in the world.  Maybe I should cut my losses and just give up on the “old truck” idea.  I have the kind of job that would easily allow me to put myself behind the leather wrapped wheel of a zippy, new sports sedan and then pay someone else to do my lawn and improve my house, and buy my furniture from a catalog instead of trying to do everything myself.  But, I’m a computer programmer who grew up as a redneck and I value the virtue of self-reliance.  My parents never had a car that was made in the same decade in which we were driving it.  Their parents drove cars that they made themselves using old tractor parts and baling twine.  (True story)  Mom grew up on a dairy farm in western Pennsylvania and Dad lived on a plant nursery in south Florida.  I am proud of their hard-working roots and I don’t want to be the first generation in my family to give in to the “disposable” society.  I see value in that truck beyond just dollar signs.  That 84 Dodge is a symbol of an America that I’m not sure really even exists anymore, except in pockets where people refuse to let it die out.

If that sounds hokey or sappy to you, well, perhaps it is.  But I really like that truck, and I think it is worth keeping.  Even though I know it is just an inanimate piece of steel, I can’t shake the feeling that it represents something more than just the sum of it’s nuts and bolts.  I’m hoping that if I treat it right, and give it a nice new heart, that it will reward me with years and years of loyal service.  Sentimental?  I’ll concede that.  But until you have driven a battered-but-not-broken pickup truck down a tree-lined, two-lane road on a perfect spring evening just as the sun is setting, with your arm hanging out the rolled down window, and no radio on (cause it’s busted), and felt that little flutter in your stomach when you experienced momentary weightlessness as you crested hills on worn out shocks and bald tires, and got waved at by the driver of every car you passed, and waved back at all of them; until you have done that, well, I don’t much give a damn what you think of me or my truck.

Of course, the cynic in me says that I’m going to wind up like one of those poor bastards in bad relationships that I’m always marveling at.  You know the fella I’m talking about:  his relationship sucks but he won’t dump the bitch because she gives him head on their anniversary.  Yeah, I don’t wanna be “that guy”.  So if the truck so much as coughs at me within 2 years of getting this engine replaced, I will not hesitate to drive it straight to the junkyard and give the crusher operator fifty bucks to look the other way and let me do the honors myself! 

Maybe.