dangerous compassions

I call you / from the comet's cradle

Sunday, December 07, 2014

the end of BOB

So our neighbor looked at BOB.  We verified that there's an awful lot of exhaust coming out of the tail pipe.  He says it's because the engine's gaskets are leaky.  The oil and water gaskets are leaky, so lots of water vapor is coming out the tailpipe when the engine's warming up.  Once it gets up to temp, it's fine.

(Well, fine is a relative term.  About ten different things are wrong with BOB, but we have worked around or ignored those ten things.)

Our neighbor says not to stress the engine, to get oil changes more frequently than the 5000 miles we'd been doing, and there's nothing to do but be gentle with it and keep driving it.

But the copious amount of exhaust is not okay.  I don't want to get a fix it ticket from a cop thinking we're a gross polluter.

If the exhaust was just in our backyard that might be okay.  But it will make huge clouds of exhaust also whenever we leave where we are.  That's not okay.

So we're not going to take it on long trips anymore, and we're not going to drive it much anymore.  I guess it will become worthless.  Maybe just hold onto it until it needs to be smogged again and see what they say.  If it's leaky gaskets, there's nothing to be done, I guess, other than get a new engine, which we're not going to do.

I feel like crying.  I wish BOB had a more definite end.  I wish it was dead or alive, not a weird half-alive.

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