Now that’ I’d secured my hotel and a third night at that, it looked like I was really going to do this thing. Since I would be driving – not flying – the next thing I needed to do was have my car checked and make sure it could get me there safely.
You may be asking why did I drive when I could have flown. Well, there were a few reasons. One, I wanted to have access to a car when I got there and I didn’t want to rent one. So I think it actually came out cheaper for me to just drive and already have the car than to fly and then rent one. Maybe if I had planned on just staying in San Francisco that would have worked, but I also intended to go to Sacramento to visit the state’s Capitol and Fairfield to go to the Jelly Belly factory, so I needed a car for that.
I also wanted to drive because I wanted to feel the distance. The longest road trip I’ve ever been on was from California to Louisiana. You don’t realize how vast a state is until you drive through it. Hello, I’m talking about you Texas. I can’t tell you how many times I fell asleep during that trip only to wake back up and discover we were still in Texas. I also fell asleep in Arizona, woke back up and missed New Mexico completely, but Texas? It seemed like it went on forever. And so, being a native Californian who had never been to Northern California, I guess I just wanted to feel the distance.
As the trip approached, the drive was actually one of the scariest parts for me, like one of the things that I thought would be a major deterrent. One of the things that I honestly thought I could use as my reasoning – not even an excuse – for not going had I decided to stay.
So anyway, at this time it’s about three weeks or so before the trip. I got my plans all lined out, I got the hotel secured and I’ve already purchased my Alcatraz ticket. Now, I just needed to give my car a checkup. My check engine light had been on for a minute. Back in December I got it serviced at Pep Boys and was told it was an emissions problem. They said nothing was wrong with the car, but if I didn’t get it fixed I wouldn’t pass my smog test. Other than that, it was fine to drive, even long distances. At that time I had a two hour drive in mind, but now with a five hour drive (because I actually thought I could do it in five hours) I thought I’d better get this problem fixed.
I would have actually gotten it fixed at Pep Boys at the time, but they didn’t have the part and had to order it from the dealer. So I took my car and started calling local dealers myself and that’s how I found out that this emissions problem was covered under a California Emissions Warranty because my car is a PZEV car. It’s a 15 year or 150,000 mile warranty and my Beetle is 14 years old with half those miles, so either way you slice it, it qualified.
With the trip not far off, I finally took it to the dealer. They said they would fix the emissions for free since it was covered under the warranty, and took the opportunity to tell me about a little over $3000 worth of other work my car needed.
The devil must not want me to go to San Francisco.
Say what, say huh? Come again? Three what? I went through their recommendations, got the $100 oil change and was out. Yes, that’s how much it cost to change the oil on a VW, and that was a sale.
Yet the more I thought about it, the more I said to myself, do I really want to breakdown in the middle of nowhere on the way to San Francisco? I started looking at flights and rental cars, and the flights were like $300. The car rentals were up there as well.
It was looking like I was going to have to pay one way or the other, or not go. That’s when I decided maybe I should just have some work done to my car. But not $3000 worth of work, because, you know, dealers’ prices be astronomical. I started calling around to other places after googling “German auto specialists.” I had a few places to decide from, but in the end, I ended up right back at Pep Boys to have $836 worth of work done. It wasn’t everything the $3000 was going to cover at the dealer, but I reasoned it was enough.
Since I have a decent…okay, pretty good, though not great credit score, my bank had been sending me these balance transfer checks that I could use to transfer the balance from another high-interest-rate card, or to make a big purchase. What’s even better, it would be like 0 percent interest from now to February 2024, or something like that. The only thing was, there was like a five precent transfer fee. Five percent of $836 is only a little over $40, so for $40 I could stretch this payment out for like nine months. That, and the fact that my car is paid for made me feel better about dropping that much cash to get my car fixed.
I was ready to use those bank credit checks too when it dawned on me…instead of giving my bank $40 to borrow this money, I could actually borrow from myself for free. I could take it from my savings and pay it back to myself over time like I would have to the bank. What’s more, I could pay myself the extra $40 for making this arrangement. If I was gon’ give it to them, might as well give it to me.
So I took the car to Pep Boys, and while they’re doing their thing, the check engine light comes back on. Now remember, that issue was supposed to have been fixed at the VW dealer a few weeks ago. It’s now the day before I’m set to leave for San Francisco, aka too late to cancel my hotel without being charged for at least one night, make that two nights, because I did the third night as a separate reservation as not to loose the deal I got on the first two nights, since the price had changed.
I was pissed. How the hell was I going to go to San Francisco with the check engine light on without having to spend a ton more money on a last-minute rental car?
But God.
I’d read up on that California Emissions Warranty (I be reading the fine print on damn near everything y’all) and it stated that while the dealer works on your car for something covered under the emissions warranty they had to provide you with a loaner vehicle.
I went back to that dealership and came in hot. I was already upset with them because of a previous issue, so this time when I walked in, I demanded the manager of the dealership – not the service manager, the dealership– and demanded a loaner vehicle. I thought I was going to have to bust out the warranty and how it states that the loaner vehicle was included, but when the manager came over, he came across as the type that didn’t want to fuck with an upset woman – perfect! I must admit, he was really nice, so I made sure to direct my wrath only to the guy at the counter not him.
Meanwhile, the manager was trying to sell me a vehicle. He was like how long have you had that Beetle? It’s paid off I assume. What are you looking at for your next car? I told him an Audi Q5, though that would probably be down the line. You know Audi is the luxury version of VW. Next thing I knew, the guy pulls up with my loaner vehicle, an all-black-everything Tiguan. I mean, it wasn’t quite that fast, but I peeped the manager’s game immediately. My car is a tiny Beetle, and you gon’ give me this big ass SUV? I work in sales too – game recognize game, homie.
At first I was reluctant, because one, I thought that thing would be a gas guzzler. Two I was wondering how well I could maneuver it. And three, I knew it would be so much harder to find street parking in San Francisco with a car that size. But the manager convinced me that it handled well, told me that it takes less gas than my Beetle, and told me he had nothing smaller.
I took the car and it drove like a dream. I loved sitting up so high. I loved that I could sync my phone with the car, or like answer my phone through the car. I just loved the way it looked, the way it felt. And yes, it was harder to find street parking with the Tiguan than it would have been with my Beetle. There was as a part of me that was sorry I couldn’t take my precious Beetle with me to San Francisco, , but I knew it might not have faired well on parts of the 5 freeway.
I enjoyed driving that car so much, when it was time to turn it back in, I was kinda hoping that they would say they couldn’t fix my Beetle and I could keep the Tiguan. That actually happened to me before. I bought a car and they needed to repair something on it before they released it, so they had me in a rental. However after the work was taking forever, I found out that they gave the car I bought back to the original owner. So I did some research and found out that they had to provide me with another car that was comparable to the one I bought, not by price but by features. Because of lemon laws, I could pick any car on the lot, no matter the year, make and model as long as it had the same features. I ended up with a car that was five years newer (That was in Georgia circa 2004). I was hoping, perhaps, something similar would happen here.
But alas, it was not to be. I turned the car back in. I had that loaner vehicle from Thursday to Tuesday completely free. Won’t He do it!
Honestly, I believe it was a temporary blessing where God allowed me to experience a sampling of something I want, but currently can’t afford, so that I don’t stop working towards the goal. Sometimes it feels like my current circumstances are so far removed from some of my goals and dreams that I can forget what I dream about. But with this experience it was like I was able to remember one of my dreams by having it become my reality for a short period of time. It’s just a reminder to remember the life that I want, the things that I want, the person that I want to be, and that I have to keep going, because those things are still possible for me.
To Be Continued…
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