Oh my car...

The one thing that I own that I am tied to most is my car.  I always take care of it and am on top of any maintenance.  I guess that comes from being my father's daughter - always being reminded to get anything checked out when I hear something.  Which I do.  Then today...

I worked a half day in the morning with one of my favorite teachers at my old school.  I get a text from Mindi and we decide to go out to lunch - Jason's Deli - mmmmmmm!  Baked potato sounds amazing!  Forgetting that Diehl road is under construction, I choose that way to get there, wait in traffic for 15 minutes to go a quarter of a mile, get off of the rough grooved surface (hitting the bump onto the paved surface), and then it happened.  At first sounded like the asphalt debris was being thrown up into the wheel wells of my car and then I realized the noise was coming from under the hood.

I pull off into Lifetime Fitness, realizing that instead of going to do my workout after working this morning that I'm going to lunch.  As I start to try to get into the turn lane, my stearing wheel was really hard to turn.  I somehow make it into a parking space and call Mindi to come and meet me.  Then call my dad to figure out what it could be.  I pop the hood and the belt isn't moving.  This means that it is not turning the water pump, the alternator, or the power stearing - explaining why it was so hard for me to turn.  It also means that the car could easily overheat at any time. 

We go to lunch and decide to deal with all this after that.  Luckily we have free towing upto 15 miles on our insurance.  I have them tow the car to the Naperville Saturn.  After them having my car for 3 hours I get a call that the belt tensioner and belt need to be replaced plus labor = $425.  That is a $15 belt (they're charging me $40) and a $90 tensioner (they're charging me $200) and labor is $180 which is based on the type of work that has to be done.

Seriously?  $425?  What are these dealerships thinking?  OH that's right - they're all running out of money so mark up the prices because you KNOW people are going to need their cars fixed.  I know that we are all trying to make money and save money but I feel like these places take advantage.  NO - they DO take advantage and that is a shame.  You can't tell me that they don't want to get a break sometime too, just like the rest of us.

But it is what it is.  I decided not to go with them once Chris talked to Lauren..  Luckily I didn't have to pay anything for them to look at it and I was able to get free towing to another place.  Thankfully Lauren was able to help me and get me into her autobody shop and we're hoping that it will be much cheaper.  More on that tomorrow though once I hear from the shop. 

For right now I'm just so thankful to wonderful friends who are always there to help out when I need them.  And to my darling husband for bringing home dinner knowing that this just hasn't been a good week.