I’m driving down the freeway when the “check engine” light turns on in my car. I notice it, and start wondering what’s going on. I just had a car maintenance less than 24 hours ago, and now the car was acting up?

I took the car yesterday afternoon [Wednesday] to Jiffy Lube again and talked with them about the situation. They told me the details of the things they had done to the car, and then they went ahead to look at what the new problem was. The battery of my car was dead according to them [giving out only 25 units of energy, compared to the 122 units required] and the fuel filter needed cleaning.

Like many people say, a car is the backbone of many things, specially if you live in an area where without cars you cannot communicate. In Southern California, there are no subways, and taking trains from one city to another is like taking a plane from one end of Disneyland to the other. While buses are almost everywhere, they’re not there all the time. Miss one bus and you will have to wait about 55+ minutes for the next bus to come. Even more interesting is the fact that if you see a bus that is about to leave a “bus stop”, and you are a few meters away walking fast to catch the bus, the driver will always start driving in this area even if he/she sees you. It seems they even speed up to make you run fast, and also to ditch you. There is no way all the bus drivers somehow cannot see in the rear view mirrors all the people running after their buses and waving like hungry seagulls on the sidewalks and in the middle of the roads.

I told them to go ahead and clean the car, and remembered what birdie had said in the comments before; she always did what the mechanic had told her to do so, and I realized she was right to do so. It is better to be safe and waste money a little bit than to have the car die on you when it is the only way to move from one place to another in many areas. Oh well; I went ahead with both the battery and fuel filter replacement, and the total came out to be $199.93 . The mechanic mentioned that he is going to give me a $53 discount, because of their August special, so the total came out to be $156.61 . After that, I started my car to test it and it didn’t make any sound; it started perfectly, as if it was brand new. The exhaust released so much “dust” when I accelerated that I couldn’t see the mechanics behind my car anymore. After a few seconds, the dust was gone and my car was supposedly fixed. I thanks the mechanics and asked for my receipt. The mechanics thanked me for coming and handed me a paper. I looked at it, and it was a list of recommended things to fix on the car along with my receipt:

Belt : $69.99 + tax
Radiator $69.99 + tax
T-Tech Flush Transmition $89.99 + tax
[picture below]

I looked back at the mechanic who had handed my the paper, who was laughing and blinking a lot at the same time, happy that he had found a live bait. I told him that I will have the “recommendations” done some other time, and left. The car is acting as if it just came out of the showroom, and I’m glad it does.

The moral of the story; no idea. A car has no shame, and usually the driver has no morale when it comes to fixing the car. Whether or not the changes that a service center recommended should be done is very hard to know unless one takes the car to different places within a day to find out the prices and the condition of different parts in the car. Until then, there is no wrong or right choice when it comes to fixing your car. Simply fix it whenever anyone tells you there is a problem, and it seems you will stay out of trouble. Other times, you can get away by finding out if the changes are really needed or not. If that doesn’t suit you either, just take the bus; it’s much more relaxing to sit and watch out of the window on a bus than to keep hitting the brakes in your car.