Mac and the Mechanics

So if you had a problem with your car you’d take it to a repair shop and hope that they’d find the source of the problem and fix it…much like doctors do. For example:

Patient: “Doctor, it hurts when I pee”

Doctor: “You have the clap”

Everyone’s happy (except the boy with the clap…who will remain nameless…mainly because he doesn’t exist…well I’m sure someone does have the clap, but I’m just saying I don’t know who they are).

So for the last 5 months I’ve been driving my car around and once I’ve been driving around for a little while the front right wheel region (it’s technical name, I’ll have you know!) starts making a noise like a grebe is trapped in it (“whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop” for the uninformed among you). It’s not very good, especially when you’re going at 80mph down the motorway and you’re terrified that some point the grebe will fall out and somehow manage to dislodge the wheel on it’s way out…I’ve seen it happen…

Annnyway, so I’ve taken my car to the garages 3 times in this 5 month span hoping the mechanics would work their mechanical-magicTM and I could drive away happy and grebe-freeTM.

No one has been able to find the problem with it…some would argue that it is probably only a small issue and not worth worrying about. That’s a fair point, but until you’ve sat behind the wheel of my “car” while this thronging, warbling, mess of a noise is drowning out the stereo, you’ve no idea what it is like Mister!! I’m a panicky person at the best of times and peace of mind is what I seek from these car-doctors…

Drove to Oban after a particularly bad weekend consisting of driving around a lot and the car sounding like it was about to fall apart…with Mrs Grebe joining her husband for the ride and bringing along their brood. After a few days in the garage I received a call and had the following exchange with the mechanic:

Mechanic: “Your suspension strut collapsed”

Me: silence “…is that bad?”

Mechanic: “Um…well yes. How long have you been driving it like this?…”

Me: silence “…uh…about 3 months…”

Mechanic: silence

So it became clear that I was quite a lucky boy and had recklessly endangered the lives of everyone that had ever been in the car. Sorry everyone…

Anyway, they put in a new suspension strut in their and off I drove happily back to St Andrews (about a 3 hour drive). Then about 45 minutes into my drive, I don’t know if I hit something, but whatever it was, the fucking noise started again!!! Argh!!! I called up the mechanics (hands-free. stay safe kids) and they explained that they had fixed the strut…I explained I was very grateful for that but the noise was still there.

Mechanic: “…yeah…but…we fixed the strut”

Me: “yeah and that is great, thanks very much, but I’m driving at 60 at the moment and as you can hear the noise is still very much there”.

Mechanic: “well we couldn’t find anything else wrong with the car”

Awesome. The fantasy noise continues. I don’t know what the hell is wrong and no one else seems to either. I’m still pissed off because the mechanic seemed almost hurt that I was questioning his workmanship – but if you went to a Doctor with potential appendicitis and he diagnosed that you had a broken leg and put your leg in a cast and you left the hospital still with your appendix ready to burst at any moment, you wouldn’t be particularly happy. Bastards. Anyway, apparently it is likely a wheel bearing but the problem can’t be that big, but “it’ll eventually wear down and then you’ll lose ‘drive’”. I’m not a mechanic but apparently when you live ‘drive’, you lose the ability to steer the car at all.

Good times.