My Husband Is a Soccer Mom

Oh my. So much has happened in the last week; it feels like an eternity has passed. I think I'll sum it up with the end of the story first (but you know I am Wordy, so I'll fill in the blanks after): We sold the Prius. We bought a minivan. I am now driving the Mazda, while Andrew is taking the minivan. We're 30, have two children, have stable jobs, and live in the suburbs. Eight years ago, you could not have convinced me that this would be my life, but there you have it. And I've never been happier.

But this post is not really about my station in life. It's about an incredibly stressful week and the quick turn for the worse the Prius took. You may remember my very recent post about the brake issue? After spending so much money on a repair and discovering that hundreds of dollars of other repairs were needed (namely the leaking water pump), we decided it was time to start thinking about selling the Prius and fulfilling Andrew's lifelong dream of being a soccer mom. We figured we'd sell the car in a year or two, no rush.

Ha! Hahahaha.

It was not long before Andrew began scouring craigslist for used Kia Sedonas. We wanted one that was still pretty new (2010 or newer preferably) without a ton of miles. And lo and behold, he soon found a 2011 model with 24,000 miles. It was in amazing shape and was only being sold because the lovely family that owned it was dealing with some unexpected medical issues and the bills were piling up. When we went to check it out, it was obvious how much they adored the van. They bragged about its features as if they were talking about their children.

We decided maybe it was time to go for the van and sell the Prius now. Why wait a couple more years when more things might go wrong, right? Should have knocked on some wood.

We made an offer on the Kia and began moving money from various accounts into our checking account so we could actually pay them. And we set the wheels in motion to sell the Prius. Andrew took it in to the shop last Monday to get the water pump fixed and an oil change. We figured we'd have an easier time selling it if it was all fixed up. A couple hours after leaving it at the shop, Andrew got a call from the mechanic. "You probably ought to just come out here. There's a whole bunch wrong with the car, but it'd be easier just to show you rather than explain it over the phone."

Ugh.

As it turned out, the struts were totally shot. I am bad at routine maintenance, and they should have been replaced ten thousand miles earlier. Whoops. The bad struts were causing the tires to wear extremely unevenly, to the point where my non-car-guy husband could immediately see that there was a major problem. It was kind of a wonder that none of the tires had blown already considering the damage.

(Quick time-out: I am furious at Toyota, specifically Hendrick Toyota at 67th and I-35, for doing a "complete diagnostic work-up" and failing to notice to the struts or the tires. Did the trained mechanic really not notice something that even Andrew could see, or did the Toyota tech ignore the problem intentionally? I can come up with no reason not to tell us. And I am half relieved/half terrified that the tires were so close to exploding but didn't.)

Nearly $1000 later, we had a fixed water pump, changed oil, and four new tires. The struts were just going to have to wait, because our wallets couldn't take it. (Did I mention that we're doing a bunch of landscaping right now and found quite a bit of termite damage? Good times!) Selling the Prius quickly was starting to sound better and better. Quick, before anything else breaks!

The next day (I kid you not, it was really the next day), I was on my way to my mom's house and all these warning lights suddenly flash on the dashboard. Car silhouettes with bold red exclamation marks and codes I couldn't begin to decipher appeared. I stopped as soon as I could, at a nearby McDonald's, and looked in the owner's manual. The VCS, vehicle stability control, was having a problem. The manual told me to stop driving immediately and contact my Toyota dealer. Terrific.

I called Andrew in tears. He calmed me down. Yes, this sucks. But Olive and I were just fine, and we'll get through it. It's just money. A whole lot of money going out the door. When I haven't earned a paycheck in six months. But it's just money. Okay, calm. I called my mom to pick us up, called AAA to get another tow. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Sigh. (The tow truck guy commented on the tires. "Those look pretty new," he said. "Yes," I said. "We got them yesterday." He clearly pitied me.)

Turned out the coolant was low. May not have been as dire as the warning lights indicated, but could have led to an overheated engine which is never good. Especially in 100+ degree heat, I imagine.

Once again, Toyota, in their amazing diagnostic work, failed to mention the broken struts, which I complained about. I got a weak apology and a lot of empty excuses.

We decided we must sell that car. Forget listing it on craigslist, we couldn't wait that long or afford to make the required fixes. Or wait for a buyer who would take it as is. So we asked Toyota what they'd pay for a car already on their lot. First the offer was $3500. Then the guy discovered the car was driveable and offered $6500. We said we were getting a quite from Carmax too, and he went up to $7000. Sketchy, since all this was based on nothing, not having even checked out the car in question.

We took the Prius over to Carmax, and after a practically enjoyable experience, got a $7000 offer. I cleaned out all the junk that afternoon, and that evening, I drove my (formerly) beloved car for the last time. A bittersweet moment, handing over the keys and the title. That was my first grown-up car; it carried me almost 92,000 miles across the country. But I had become scared to drive it. Every time I turned it on, I drove with hands clenched on the steering wheel, anxiously anticipating the moment when something else would go wrong. And that's not any way to drive.

Two days later, we officially purchased our Kia. And so far, we're loving it. It still surprises me to see a minivan out on the driveway, but I must be the slow one to adapt. Even Milo is already used to calling the van "Daddy's car" and the car that was once Andrew's car "Mommy's car." I'm just glad the whole thing is over. I had enough to worry about this week before any of this car stuff happened. Did you know I'm going back to work Tuesday? But let's chat about that in another post. This one is clearly too long already. (Thanks to both my blog readers for sticking with it.)

Brake it Down

A couple weeks ago the brakes on my car went out. While I was driving. While I was driving with my two sleeping children in the backseat. Needless to say, it was one of those terrifying moments that, thankfully, happen so fast you don’t even have time to process how truly terrifying it is as it’s happening.

Spoiler alert: we’re all safe and nothing awful happened (unless you count the huge dent in our checking account).

The kids and I were on our way to my parents’ house. To turn into their neighborhood from a four-lane busy street, you have to be paying attention or you just might miss the street. My method is to watch for the street sign to know exactly when the turn is coming up. Apparently, though, the street sign was down for some reason. While I had slowed down considerably, when I realized the street was upon us, I wasn’t quite going slow enough to safely make the turn.

So I cruised on to the next turn, which goes into a parking lot and would let me wind my way over to the neighborhood street. No big deal.

But in an instant, my car (and me) started freaking out. Warning beeps screeched, dashboard lights flashed, emergency signals that I couldn’t decipher suddenly appeared on my screen. I tried to brake and quickly realized that was not happening. I needed to get off the road. Everything happened so fast, I’m not sure exactly how things went down. One of the lights that came on was my emergency brake light. I thought, “Did I manage to turn on my emergency brakes?” So I pressed the emergency brake pedal to try to turn it off, which turned out to be a good thing because it slowed me down. I think I put on my flashers, aware that things were not good and I should try to warn other drivers.

As I was attempting the right turn into the parking lot, another car was exiting the lot, and I briefly considered honking because I didn’t think I was going slow enough to control my turn. But somehow I controlled it. Maybe it was the fact that I was on an incline that slowed me down. Maybe it was because I had already been decreasing my speed for awhile. Maybe it was because I pressed the emergency brake pedal. But I cruised into the lot and pulled over to the side. I could tell my brakes were not doing what they were supposed to. Their stopping action was not related at all to my pressing on the pedal, it seemed.

My heart was pounding. I may have cursed a time or two. But we were stopped, and the kids were still asleep in spite of the beeping, screeching warning sounds. I turned the car off and tried turning it back on. The classic reset move. But that didn’t help anything. The flashing and beeping started the instant the car came back on. I considered whether I could make it to my parents’ house, since I was only a couple blocks away. No, bad idea. I did, however, decide to try to move the car about 20 feet forward to be in an actual parking spot rather than on the side of the parking lot entrance. Since I never went more than 5 mph, I was able to pull off this maneuver.

I called my parents and my dad answered the phone. I explained what happened and asked him to come pick up the kids. It was about 100 degrees out and I didn’t like the thought of them sleeping in the car in the heat. Dad came right away and we all loaded into the car, deciding that I could call AAA from their house and come back to the car when the tow truck came.

I called, the car got towed to my side of town, and we ended up paying close to $2200 for parts and labor. It was the skid control ECU that had malfunctioned and needed to be replaced. (While I’m sure all of you know exactly what that is, let me explain for my own memory. It’s basically one of several sub-computers in the car that controls a bunch of functions, including the brakes. And since the brakes in the Prius are tied to the whole hybrid functionality, it’s a complicated expensive thing to fix. And nobody but the dealer will fix it, so they can pretty much charge whatever they want for labor.)

In the end, everything turned out fine. And the brakes going out happened at about the best possible time. The day before, we were on our way back from my cousin’s wedding in Iowa and spent a lot of time on small roads in rural Iowa. With temps in the upper nineties and no shade to speak of, waiting for a tow truck in the middle of nowhere would have been a lot worse. Even just ten minutes earlier would have been worse, since we were driving on a 65-mph-highway. And having that street sign down was even a good thing, since it had me slowing down, but forcing me to miss the turn meant I ended up going up an incline. I’m not one to believe in miracles or guardian angels or any of that, but incidents like this make me feel pretty thankful to the universe for looking out for me and my babies.