I’m sure many of you are dying to know what happened to the trusty Ford Taurus!  As you know, Trevor’s Taurus broke down in August en-route to California.  Fortunately, a friend of Trevor’s father was able to take the car for us in Denver and agreed to help us find a new engine and get it replaced.

In October, we bought plane tickets to fly back to Denver and pick up the car, but hours before we were supposed to leave, we got the bad news that the transmission was leaking fluid like crazy and it needed to go back into the shop BUT that the mechanic had left for Vegas and wouldn’t be able to help us for at least a week.  We changed our plane tickets for a month later and figured it would be done by then.  Mid-november rolled around and the mechanic gave us the great news that it was a false alarm and that we did not need a new transmission.  Again, hours before we were supposed to fly we got the call and the car wasn’t ready.  So, we finally pushed our plane tickets back to January 5th, figuring there was no way on earth the car wouldn’t be ready by then.  Lo and behold, a week before the car was supposed to be done, we found out that in fact NO PROGRESS had been made since October, still!  Trevor’s friend found a new mechanic and we thought the car would be ready by the 5th.  However, we flew into Colorado and found out the bad news that yet another part had broken… like last time, it wasn’t JUST the one part that needed to be fixed.  It pushed back our leave date by 3 more days, but we were finally able to take off from Colorado, several months later and several thousand dollars later.

Trevor and I packed the kittens and all our stuff into the car, and drove off to Gallup, NM, our first stop on the trip back to Los Angeles.  In Santa Fe, we noticed that there was a weird noise coming from underneath the hood but everything seemed fine, so we carried on.  Literally less than 100 yards from our hotel, we heard a horrendous crunch (like we had hit something), the power steering went out and the battery light came on.  Oh noes!  We drove it over to the hotel (boy, was that lucky!) and couldn’t see anything obviously wrong, so we waited for morning and took it to a nearby Pep Boys.  Pep Boys gave us the bad news that the crankshaft pulley (whatever that is!) was broken and needed to be replaced, and that we wouldn’t make it to Los Angeles if we didn’t get it fixed.  What a bummer!  The other bad news was that it would be at least 2 days before we could leave because they didn’t have the part!  I made hotel reservations and got lunch for Trevor and I while we waited in the Pep Boys lobby.  Luckily, when I got back, the guy at Pep Boys had taken pity on us and had called a competitor to get the part.  It was fixed a few hours later and we were off for Kingman, AZ, stop number two!  Luckily, all went well and we made it back to Los Angeles in time for our jobs.

BUT– if you have good eyesight you can see that the name of the above tow truck is “LA Car Carrier.”  Just about a week after returning to LA, I got the call from Trevor: “my car started making a terrible noise and I need you to pick me up.”  Oh no!  The next morning, we were able to start the Taurus but it squealed and smelled of burning rubber.  We took it to a mechanic near and they diagnosed the problem– which turned out to be the SAME ONE as in Gallup, NM.  Apparently they didn’t install the part right or they messed up something in the process because our poor pulley and damper system was awry again.  We took it back to Pep Boys and luckily, even though it took almost a week, they were able to get the part and do the labor for us for FREE (because obviously it was their fault last time).  There’s one great thing about going to a national auto chain!

Anyway, the trusty Taurus is now back in Trevor’s possession and everything is right again.  Here’s hoping that this was the last time we’ll be fixing the Taurus in a long time!