Monthly Archives: January 2008

Of course I spoke too soon about the Briata… Mere hours after I posted last, the transmission freaked out yet again, this time thankfully after I was off the freeway and almost home, so it wasn’t as scary but still extremely disappointing. Since Wednesday morning they have had my poor car, and each day I have to call right before they close asking for status. Yesterday I called and the latest diagnosis is that there is absolutely nothing mechanically wrong with the transmission, only the electrical, so I was told “Your PCM probably killed your last transmission and is working on killing #2.” Excuse me? Now my Briata needs a brain transplant?!? They are waiting for the subcontractors they hired to install my new alarm system last October to come back and verify they didn’t screw up any of my wiring before they install a brand-new brain, especially because they’ve already told me it won’t cost me anything. Unless they get their act together tomorrow, that means they’ll have my car the entire time I’m out of town this week, but I’ve been promised it will be stored each night inside the dealer garage. They aren’t driving it because each time it’s driven, they think the faulty (psychotic?) PCM is shorting out parts of my brand-new transmission and doing minor damage that can get worse. Joy.

However, if the Briata’s brain was already deteriorating a year ago, that could explain the problems with the emissions system that took so many times to correct, the alternator spontaneously going bad, and my alarm system freaking out, in addition to the fried transmission solenoid, all within the same year. I had even asked last March “could it possibly be the computer going bad and creating check engine codes where nothing is wrong?” but I was dismissed by the experts since the 1999 Miata brains don’t have a history of breaking. Maybe if the brain had been replaced last year I wouldn’t have had to pay for everything else, but too late now. Too bad she couldn’t have just started singing “Daisy” so I would have some proof she was becoming unstable!

Now, I’m going to pack & try to enjoy my work trip this week, since it’s a Royal Caribbean cruise out of Miami to the Bahamas & Key West. At least I hope for some sunshine after this absolutely miserable weather we’ve been having!

Now that I finally have 4 days and over 100 miles of driving fine in the Briata again – the transmission fluid was low, so they think it was an air bubble in the fluid since no leaks they could find – I realize it’s been awhile for kitty updates. Ebony & Onyx are still as cute as can be, growing larger every day, and getting more adventurous about jumping, including booting up the kitchen iMac! They have started it up so many times now that I honestly think they’ve figured out if they step in the right place, the screen lights up & starts moving & making noise! They are certainly fascinated enough by my laptop and even the TV. Anything that moves is fair game of course, whether real or onscreen. Even the hammers inside the piano have been attacked while I’m playing! I have been trying to discourage improper behaviors with a loud, long, low-pitched NOOO which at least gets their attention at the time. Since last night & Sunday night it was a game of “who can jump on the counter first?” they will definitely not yet be allowed free rein in the house while I’m gone at work!

Not all these below are adventures specific to the kittens, but I wouldn’t have the CatGenie if I didn’t have Ebony & Onyx, so you can read them all if you’d like. There are also more kitty photos starting on page 13 of their gallery album. This one is from when I pulled out a kitchen drawer to reorganize it, and they climbed in to nap on the extra towels and black cat potholders.

Can you find all three black cats?

Onyx is unafraid of spinning

I got the Briata back last night with brand-spanking new transmission to the tune of $3500, tested it by flooring it down Lawrence Expwy shifting fine through all gears in 10 seconds or less before filling it up with gas, drove fine to work this morning glad I had my comfortable fun car back, got it washed at lunch so it was all pretty again, and to help my mood, I bundled up with gloves, scarf & jacket to drive home in the chilly dusk with the top down…when merging fro 92 onto 280 again, it decided to not want to shift AGAIN! This time it’s just erratic, shifting when it feels like it, feeling like it’s spinning in neutral when it doesn’t want to shift. The check engine light caught a clue and came on about halfway home, and I caught the Miata guy when I called while still driving before he left since he had stayed late. Since I was trying to stay calm but was obviously upset as I was explaining the symptoms to him, he kept saying “we’ll take care of it” and “don’t even fill out the envelope since I know your whole story.” Yeah you’d better know it by now. I have been very nice & civil the entire time, but honestly, if they try to tell me a DIFFERENT problem somehow magically appeared after REPLACING the entire transmission, I will rip them a new one on the spot. Back to my hazards on while driving carefully down 280 in the slow lane with an idiot flashing his brights behind me. Hel-LO, just go around me, I’m a HAZARD, hence the lights! I do not want this to become a trend. It is in no way fun in the least.

Cyd & I already had plans for dinner & Sweeney Todd, so I called her asking her to pick me up at the dealer instead of meeting me there, since I really needed some fun plans vs. just canceling. I was so mad & so disappointed that as I was sitting in my parked car in the deserted dealership lot waiting for her to arrive I broke down & sobbed for awhile out of sheer frustration. When she arrived, she asked if we should just go for drinks instead of a movie, but we decided to drop my stuff home, raid my pantry for provisions, then hit a slightly later show at 7:45, and she had two free tickets to use, so that was nice. So we arrived at the movie theatre with about 1/3rd bottle of Chateau Julien port, carmelized onion cheddar with crackers, and sweet potato chips, then scored a free small popcorn that we barely ate. Diet be damned, I’d had a bad day! One of the plastic cups we brought developed an unseen crack, so we ended up sharing the other cup taking turns with our sips, and the small artistic puddles of port that spilled on the floor before the movie started were a nice foreshadowing of the bloody musical, which gave me a good well-needed laugh. Too bad Cyd was already wiping them up before I got my camera out! I enjoyed the show, and I’m sure I’m not the first one to think “Is this Edward all grown up & gone bad?” and “How come Johnny Depp is at his hottest when all pale & moody with freaky hair?” …or maybe that last one is just me. 😉

Now to try to keep my mind off the poor Briata so I can get to sleep at a decent hour…she was home in the garage for one night at least…sheesh…

Monday started out well, with new baby news for Nathania & Kevin, I ran a couple errands at lunch, then left right at 5pm in hopes of getting to Stanford to see the new baby before choir rehearsal. I backed out of my packing space fine, got on the freeway even passing a truck, slowed down in the 92-280 traffic backup, but as I was able finally to accelerate, I got to 4000 RPMs…”it should have shifted by now”…6000 RPMs…”it DEFINITELY should have shifted by now!”…all while I was going through the tunnel to 280 South. When it was safe to pull over, I did, tried other gears, but I only had park & drive, I suspected 2nd gear by the way it sounded, with reverse & neutral acting just like park. I had already checked my overdrive button a couple times, and I restarted the car, still no luck. I called my dad in case I was missing anything totally obvious, but I wasn’t, and he warned me not to go over 4000 RPMs, so that was a fun long drive on the freeway, watching my tachometer closely with my hazards on, only able to get up to 60mph going downhill! Needless to say I didn’t make it to see the baby that night, and just had enough time to get home, figure out how to park halfway across my driveway so no one would block me since I couldn’t reverse, transfer my stuff to my Honda and get to rehearsal on time. I had called my Mazda guy while I was driving home, and I brought it in first thing yesterday morning, but they were booked so couldn’t look at it until today. After a day of hoping it was related to the accident so wouldn’t be my expense, I found out this afternoon that solenoid A that controls first gear/reverse/neutral had shorted electronically, which was due to old age, not the accident. You could replace only one solenoid to be cheaper now, but most likely B & C would start failing soon after as a chain reaction, so instead of replacing it piecemeal over time at over twice the cost, just replace the entire transmission now. Of course this is NOT what I wanted to hear, and I quizzed him a long time about what else could possibly happen to my car now that almost everything has been replaced over time!

Setting the emotional aspects aside about how I really enjoy my fun car, I weighed this logically, and even my dad agrees, and he can’t even fit in that car. 😉 The Briata has exactly 130,000 miles right now. Aside from needing a new soft top because of a wear & tear rip ($1400 which I thought would be at least twice as much), and the engine has never been opened but I’ve been told by Miata owners and service people many times the engines are solid and should easily last 200K miles, after the transmission is replaced it is practically a new car by now with everything that has been done, mostly in the past 3 years, some just since the accident. At least the rest of what could break are $1500 or less each, mostly less than $500, and would develop as problems, not leave me stuck on the freeway or limping home. Since I can’t stand the new Miata design anyway, I would have to buy a newer used Miata, get it custom painted, and still have unknown problems that would develop over time and not be under warranty, and I couldn’t do all that or even get a different brand new car for the $3500 the new transmission will cost me. Not the first expense I was planning on for 2008, but let’s consider it an early 10th anniversary present for the Briata, whose “birthday” is April 10th, and this way should be able to last several more years of fun driving. Every nice evening when the workday sucks and I can get into my car with the top down and the breeze in my hair, life immediately gets better.

For anyone curious, click here for the list behind the decision…