In Which This Bike Riding Thing Becomes Significant

Last Monday, I took the car to the dealership for a routine oil change. I’m out of warranty now, so I wouldn’t normally still go to the dealership, but it’s had this pesky recurring habit of running very loudly, like is that my car or a delivery truck rumbling down the block loudly. The dealer routinely updates some sort of software tune-up and things run much quieter for about 1,000 miles until oh, hey, there’s that delivery truck again.

So I assumed that this would be like before: oil change, software update, done by mid-afternoon.

I took my bike over on the rack so I could ride home, figuring that I’d get a little 8-mile ride in that morning and take the shuttle back in the afternoon. As I unhooked the bike, my Service Advisor Rick was typing away on the computer.

“Says here that your car has a silent recall… nope, two… and two major software updates… and four bulletins… and oh, you need to get the timing chain replaced under this other recall… I should have your car ready for you by Wednesday, maybe Thursday.”

Wait, what? Thursday? That’s most of the week!

Now, in all fairness, I rarely use my car during the week, with the exception of my weekly haul down to my Pilates instructor for my stretch/strengthening/PT (I had to cancel this week). But in the past, I’ve always had the option of driving somewhere if I wanted to or needed to.

And did I mention that The Husband has been away for the entire week, meaning that there isn’t even a backup car in the evenings, if necessary? I have to admit, it made me nervous.

The Assistant never even batted an eye. “Good thing we both have bikes, huh?” he asked.

In reality, it all worked out fine. We’ve been practicing this for months, haven’t we? The kiddo and I rode to school, the coffee shop, soccer, the supermarket, dinner… anyplace we needed to be. And we actually both admitted that we LOVED having the entire garage for the open parking of our bikes each night, rather than wrestling them into the shed at the end of the day. In fact, he’s developing an entire plan for demolition of our driveway in such a way that we build a subterranean bike parking garage — complete with built-in air compressor pump and maintenance stand for the bikes — with ramps overtop for auto access to the garage. I may need to rename him Tiny Architectural Assistant.

And the car? It’s back now, and running better than ever. Best part: it was all covered under warranty — four days of labor and three pages of parts — so the entire process only cost me $47.72, the price of the oil change and tire rotation. Not a bad deal.

How was your week?

Tags: bicycle, bike, carless, cycling, garage, maintenance, warranty

« Previous Entry Next Entry »