Cars Suck

This morning I arrived at work to find a message on my office phone, as well as a couple of missed calls on my cell, from Lady Luck. Our car's power steering hose had popped loose - again - leaving a huge mess on the driveway and making it impossible to steer the car.

This has happened four times now, over the last several years.

See, I think a repair shop I foolishly trusted did a crap job of repairing the broken power steering line. There is now a hose, with clamps, holding the two ends of the metal line together. I don't think that's quite right, but it does do the job - usually - in a ratty sort of way.

The last time this happened, I made sure the hose clamp that kept coming loose was on there as tight as possible. I double-checked it the last time I changed the oil, and it was still tight as could be.

So, I rode home again to fix the car, and stopped on the way to buy power steering fluid. I didn't bring my bag with me, so I had to stuff the bottles in my jacket.

This time, the other hose clamp had popped loose. I was already ornery because I hadn't had my coffee yet, so the discovery did not improve my mood (if I'd tightened the other clamp when I was under there last time, it wouldn't have been a problem, right? Live and learn.).

Fortunately, after performing this repair several times now, I've got the hang of it and it takes more time to get the car up on the jack and full of power steering fluid than it does to fix the problem.

Incidentally, I really like that Pennzoil's power steering fluid is blue - it made it a lot easier to tell the hose was still leaking. If it had been clear, the new fluid would have been hard to spot in the puddle of old fluid.

On the upside of all this, I got 60 miles of riding in already today, and Lady Luck made me some toast while I was home.