Transporting a car
Recently, I was asked to help our son and his wife with their car. The last portion of the story involved transporting the car and our trailer. However, let me back up closer to the beginning.
The story begins when we help them out by buying this old Mazda. I won’t say how much it cost, but as used cars go it wasn’t all that expensive. However, in retrospect it cost more than it was worth. After purchase, it needed a few things like a couple of tires and alignment.
It’s the same car you might’ve read about in another post. in that case, it was about changing a bald tire. This particular issue involved a brake job.
To be clear, we are more or less happy to help this young couple. They are after all family. They are gradually getting their life together. He’s got a new good job, She’s going to school to learn a trade. On the other hand, I’d be lying if I said the expense wasn’t painful.
Anyway, fast-forward a year or two and a dollar or 10 and there is a problem with the brakes. I have them go to Firestone where I have a credit card. Three or maybe it was four times later the problem wasn’t fixed. I really don’t blame Firestone after talking with a manager. I believe they tried their best and we’re just stumped. At least they were willing to return $500 of my money.
Now we get to the humorous part of the story. Ethan has a good friend who is a mechanic and he volunteered to take a look at the car. Now it was up to me, my truck and my trailer, to transport the car to his location.
Thankfully, I took our grandson along with me to help. He’s 16 strong, and most importantly of slight build. We hooked up the trailer and headed for the Walmart parking lot where she had left the car, unable to drive more than 2 miles an hour.
We arrived, and without much trouble we’re able to back up the trailer in front of the car. We put down the ramp and I drove it up onto the trailer. The first problem was I managed to tear off a corner of the front bumper. We were able to push it back in place.
Now comes the fun part. The car was only inches from the edge of the trailer. Oh, I didn’t mention the trailer has side rails. I couldn’t open the door more than a few inches. How was I gonna get out? I wish I had been alert enough to have Aiden take pictures.
The first thing I thought was perhaps I could get out the window. You have to understand the cars is a small Mazda. There was no way that I had 6 foot two and 260 pounds was going to get out that window. The second thing we tried was the sunroof. Aiden reached in, found the button, and open the window. With difficulty I managed to stand up. I got about as far as my chest when Aiden said, “ don’t, you are going to get stuck!” Finding at least a little bit of wisdom, I knew he was right.
There was nothing I could do but back the car off the trailer. I had him get in. I gave him a lesson on how to drive. Then he drove it up on the trailer again knocking the corner of the front bumper off. Also, he was 6 inches from one side of the trailer and half an inch from the other. That was good enough. We strapped it down and headed to TJ‘s garage.
The rest of the story is relatively uneventful. I was a little worried about whether I could park the trailer in a good spot as I’m not the best at backing up the trailer. However, I managed.
That is my funny story for today. There are no pictures.
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