About 2 weeks ago I got four new tires for the car. We'd been on our way to San Jose, hit a pothole at 1am and blown out two tires in the middle of nowhere. The police had circled for an hour while a helpful Samaritan and my kid's boyfriend drove off looking for somewhere to get a tire fixed at 1am in the morning. Finally the police knocked on the door of a local repair man and told him to get our tire fixed because it was too dangerous for us to be where we were much longer. Tire actually wasn't fixable but miracle of miracles the guy could sell us a second hand tire. You have to realize that my tires are special extra wide sport tires and even most of the tire stores don't carry them so to say we got lucky is an understatement.
The month before I'd gotten work done on the front, putting in new steering rods and some other big metal thing and finally the clanking sound had stopped. Of course they'd done it wrong the first time and put in the wrong steering rod so you couldn't actually turn a sharp turn but the second time they'd put in one that didn't rub, but the people who had done the work had left the wheel alignment so bad that the steering wheel was at a 90 degree angle when we were driving in a straight line. So getting four new tires didn't seem like a bad idea, and they could fix the wheel alignment while they were at it.
Four night ago after my father telling me that his friend had done a screenwriting course and sold three screenplays I drove out into the night angry. Pissed off, angry, driving fast while rain fell. Yet when I went around that last corner I wasn't going that fast, the sensation was different than I'd ever felt. I've skidded but this was unique. The car didn't start to leave the road when I touched the brakes, the car was leaving the road, I slammed on the brakes and then I was off the road, in a concrete ditch slammed into a concrete wall.
The first thing I thought was "why didn't the airbags go off?" And then "Christ my head hurts." I sat there for a bit shaking, then I got out of the car to look. I was sure I'd destroyed the headlights, possibly the radiator. I looked and everything looked ok. There was a hissing. I figured it was probably the radiator or the tire. I was in the middle of nowhere and I decided to drive home. There was nothing else for it. If the tire blow out on the road had taught me anything it was that I was not strong enough to change the tire. So I drove with my eye on the thermostat. No change.
The car kept swerving all over the road, I guessed it was the tire. What I didn't know was that it was the steering rod. The new steering rod which has a ball joint in it had separated, the ball had come out of the joint. That's what sent me off the road.
When I finally surveyed the damage the aluminum wheel had cracked on impact. The shock absorber had exploded, the new bushings had popped but the new steering rod had not one scratch on it, it had just turned into two parts, and it looks like it did that before I hit the wall.
So we put the old parts back on and the car is running. Still needs a shock absorber. And in reality working air bags. Now I have to wonder if it's worth getting it fixed.
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