The Hostage Situation

Yesterday, in the freezing rain and the driving Puget Sound wind, my car broke down. It's a '89 Toyota Camry. A 14-year-old, quasi-luxury compact with electric windows, etc. It even had air conditioning ... once.

I bought it in January 2002 after limping back from Los Angeles in a Hyundai "Excel," which was a hammered piece of Korean owlshit. I dug the Camry when I first drove it in the dusty nothingness of Fernley, Nevada. It's a 6-cylinder with 4 camshafts, fuel injection and 5-speed over drive. It's fast ... when it's not being towed.

After being told "it needs some work" by the previous owner (a Baptist minister no less) I had the radiator replaced. $300. All Toyotas have plastic radiators that can't be rebuild. It's a perennial design flaw like leaky Ford automatic transmissions.

Then there were the brakes at Pep Boys. If those caliper seals leak one drop they simply MUST be replaced! That was $380.

It chugged along after that. Got fabulous mileage on the freeway, somewhere between 28-36 mpg even at 65 mph+. The alternator went out in May 2002, while returning from a ill-fated anti-nuke protest outside of Las Vegas. No biggie. It was the original alternator, still had the factory sticker. I replaced the alternator myself, which ran about $60 after the core refund ... that's not counting the $200 towing bill to get me and the car out of the vast maw of the Great Basin Desert.

Then the clutch just LEFT on a sultry July afternoon in '02, right on 395 northbound near that megalithic eye sore, the MGM/Grand/Reno/Bally's/Hilton Hotel looming overhead. That was about $300 ... or maybe $400. I'd check the receipts but it would just leave me more psychologically scared than I already am.

After I got back from the U.K. in Feb. 2003, the heater hoses leaked all over everything on the business side of the firewall. I got 'em replaced (about $70 'cos they were dealership parts, ya know) and THEN on the drive BACK from the radiator shop, the transmission went out! I've asked a lot of Toyota owners and mechanics and they've all said manual transmissions failing in Toys are as rare as Spanish dabloons. That was a princely $1,500.

I drove the car to southern Colorado in May. It mysteriously lost radiator fluid all the way through the 90-degree Fahrenheit drive despite the new radiator, hoses and no visible leaks. I kept topping the radiator off thru the end of August when my job finished and I drove back to arid Reno. I parked it and went to Australia, praying someone would steal it outta my friend's driveway while I was overseas.

Upon my reluctant return from the land of naw worries love!, the car went into a "very reputable shop" where they held it hostage for 18 business days, that's 23 days in civilian terms. The entire top of the engine was re-build. Cylinder heads, valves re-ground, timing belt, spark plugs, camshafts (all four) re-aligned, gaskets galore, new plug wires, new distributor cap, etc., etc., etc. Then I was told on Day 17 of the Hostage Situation that there was a short somewhere between the battery and the ignition/steering column area. They replaced the starter solenoid and a radiator temperature sensor for the cantankerous "on-board computer." Grand total=$2,080.00. Basically, what I bought it for in February 2002.

The Cam flew up here to Seattle. Car bolted up hills and down dells. I passed BMWs like they were standing still on the I-5. Got fairly good mileage, though not what it once was.

Then yesterday, it decided it couldn't go any farther because something in the electrical nether regions was going "pop" when it should have been going "fizz." Probably a maple leaf is plastered wetly to an aged, frayed wire preventing the electrical circuit from making its usual speed-of-light rounds.

All this when I was on the verge of writing an op/ed piece for the Seattle Stranger, a weekly, about the uselessness of cars and the sheer stupidity of designing cities around them, rather than visa versa. I was all set to extol the virtues of other country’s train systems ... any other country's, including Australia and their creaking mess of a rail line.

Off to the bus stop now ...

-- Mz M.



This isn't mine. This is what Camrys look like if you're 19, own The Fast and the Furious on video and DVD and you've just dumped your trust fund into a fucking car.