Car Trouble

We took the van in on Monday because the engine light has been on for a while now and so has a light that I thought was for the brake system, but it was actually because a brake light was out in the rear. The driver side door was also not locking at all. Corey drove it in first thing Monday morning and then I was going to drop Westley off at the bus stop at 8:30 and then drive over and pick him up with the other kids. Unfortunately, his car would not start. His car has this weird problem where it won't start, the battery seems dead, so he gets the jumper cable out, hooks it up to his car and the alarm sounds and then his car starts. We have taken it to three different places so far and they all say the same thing--they have no idea. We're not sure if it's the connection to the battery or something to do with the anti-theft system, which is what causes the car to alarm when the cable is on the battery.

So the car wouldn't start and it wouldn't even start doing the jumper cable trick either. By the time I realized it was useless, the bus should have come already (8:38) but sometimes it didn't come until 8:40, so I ran Westley up the street, leaving the other kids buckled into the car in the garage, but there were no kids at the corner, so the bus had come and gone. Corey had to catch a ride from the mechanic and come start his car himself. It always happens to me when he leaves me his car, so I'm now totally terrified to be left with his car for any occasion.

So we got my car back on Tuesday, finally, and when Corey went to get it, the dashboard light for the lightbulb outage was still on. They didn't have time to figure it out before he had to leave and bring me the car. So they printed out a paper saying they were checking it out and he needs to take it back this week. But he stopped on the way home to get gas because the gas light was on, and I thought that was strange since it was close to 1/2 a tank when we dropped it off on Monday. I thought, they must have driven it all over the place, gone to Vegas or something, but no, the gas gauge is just all screwed up too. He filled the tank, only put in about 12 gallons (20 gallon tank) and the gas gauge still showed empty. So now I have to watch the mileage until we can get it back. It's got to be something to do with what they did with all the electrical stuff they dealt with on the door locks and the rear lights because the dashboard is also showing that the doors are ajar and they're not.

The worst part is that we're now out of money for car repairs, having spent the whole of it on that van repair last week. Don't know when we'll ever be able to figure out what's wrong with Corey's car, and hopefully they won't charge us, because it's something they did to cause it, for the new problem with the van.

GRRRRR!!!!!