Car Trouble

There was this Songhai saying that my Dad loved to quote while I was growing up:

He who has more rags, has more fleas

Basically, what it means is that he who has more stuff…has more problems.

For example…if you don’t have a car, you won’t have any car problems. Or if you have a 6000 square foot house, you have a LOT of house to clean. Of course, this doesn’t mean that having these things is bad. It just means that if you have them…you have to manage them. And sometimes that can be a bit of a headache!

Well, we have had quite the adventure with our cars the last month or so. We have always bought our cars used- Theo’s truck is a little 2006 Ford Escort and my van is a 2016 Dodge Caravan. So, not new…but also not old and trashy by any means. We own both vehicles outright and only had a car payment for the first 6 months of owning this van, which we bought in 2023.

Well, they both chose the SAME week to quit on us. They went from perfectly functional, reliable vehicles…to dead. IN THE SAME WEEK. It was…discouraging, to say the least.

I still don’t know what happened to the truck, but basically all the fluid leaked out and it overheated after about 1 mile of driving. Theo managed to drive it to the mechanic on a Saturday to drop it off, and the basically had to take the whole engine apart to get to the area that they needed to fix. It took an entire week to get the parts, get it fixed and get it back to us.

That very same weekend, on Sunday- we realized that the problem I had been noticing with the van was most likely the transmission (NOOOOOO). We kept driving the van because it was our only option, but by Wednesday we knew we couldn’t rely on the van to get us anywhere, and Theo took the van to the mechanic, too.

Now what is a family of 6 who lives in the suburbs/country supposed to do with NO vehicles? This was a bit of a dilemma.

Thankfully, our school community stepped up and two different people let us borrow cars for an entire week. You guys- what a blessing. Our one friend has a husband who was working out of town and so she offered us their extra car. Another friend voluntold her teenage son to let us borrow his car- which he did with a very gracious and willing heart. I truly don’t know what I would have done without these families taking care of us in this way. We had a lot on our calendar that week, and while I could have just cancelled all of it, it was so lovely being able to still attend a baby shower, basketball games and a mens breakfast at church.

Once our truck got fixed (on Monday), we were able to get around with one vehicle for a couple of days. I got the van back on a Wednesday, and we were leaving town for our family reunion in Michigan on Thursday. When we picked up the van, I decided to run to some errands and right away realized that the van wasn’t fixed. The mechanic had been very up front that he would try his best to “maintain” the transmission, but with a transmission it’s almost impossible to repair it. When it’s shifting gears, the van still kind of catches and jerks a little too hard.

We really weren’t sure if we were going to make it up to the family reunion that weekend. We can’t all fit in the truck (at least not legally haha) and the van was still feeling iffy, but we decided to try it. We did fine when we were driving on the highway, but when we stopped for dinner/gas/bathrooms, the van had a hard time starting and we were concerned we were going to be stuck somewhere in northern Ohio. Thankfully, we made it all the way to Michigan without any drama! The drama came the next morning when the van wouldn’t start…at all.

It’s one thing to have car trouble while out of town, it’s another thing to have car trouble when we literally just paid thousands of dollars to have both our cars fixed. I’m not going to lie: I was really discouraged. As one of my brother in laws put it: “You feel like you are barely treading water, and then BAM something is pushing you underwater, and you feel like you are drowning” Yep. Having another car problem definitely felt like drowning.

Thankfully, the van had a fairly “easy” fix…the starter needed to be replaced. As far as I know…a starter has nothing to do with the transmission, but I admittedly don’t know all that much about cars. Although it ended up costing far more than we would have liked to pay, it was a quick fix and we had our van back within 6 hours.

Now, I don’t have a pretty bow to wrap up this whole story. Some of my favorite bloggers that I follow simply write about life…and this is a life circumstance that we are going through. Yes, I can learn a lot of lessons from this. To be thankful for TWO working vehicles. To be so grateful for friends in our community who step up to help us. That even though the financial hits were brutal through this, we are still able to put food on our table and keep the lights on. I think these are all important lessons that I would do well to dwell on and to learn.

But I think my primary purpose in sharing this is to simply let you know that in this world of social media perfection…there are still struggles. Sometimes things happen to us that are just totally and completely out of our control. We get to practice patience, faith, gratefulness, and so many other character building qualities in these times, but that does not make them easy. Sometimes we really need to ask for help from those around us. It’s humbling. I hope that just reading through this story doesn’t make you feel bad for us, but makes you remember that if you are going through something challenging- you aren’t alone!

Remember- my inbox is always open if you need to talk/share. You can comment here or email me at thegloriousmundane@gmail.com. Life can sometimes feel heavy/hard and I hope that you don’t feel like you are bearing that burden completely alone.

P.S. A little update on the van- she’s still not doing great. Every time I drive her, I know she’s just gonna break down on the side of the road soon. I’m just praying it’s a safe place when it does happen. We are actively pricing whether a new vehicle or a transmission rebuild is on the cards for her. We would really appreciate your prayers for wisdom in this area, and for the financial ability to pay for it.