My ten year old Camry, let me down.
I was going to my mom's last Monday night to pick her up for the Sisters In Crime meeting in Portland.
Driving on SR 500, at 55 mph, I suddenly had no power under my right foot, and I immediately thought, "What do I do? Do I pull over to the side? Smash down on the throttle? What?"
I spied my turn off and steered in that direction when my car just as suddenly allowed me to accelerate. I thought "Strange..." and continued on my way, all be it at a much more sedate pace because I had acceleration when I pushed the pedal down twice as far as usual and then went jerkily down the road.
We drove Mom's car to Portland, I drove it home and to work for two days.
AAA picked up my car at Mom's and took it to the Toyota store. There was no code, and the car drove normally, and the service representive said that there were a myriad of parts they could start changing, but did I really want to do that? And that I should come in if it "did it" again.
Wednesday night after work, I picked up a friend who drove my Mom's car back to her house, and I drove my car.
It was on our way back, that my Camry started acting up again...It was decision time, go back to Mom's and get her car, or try to make it back to the Toyota store before it closed.
I was determined to get my car fixed so I lead footed it to the Toyota store with 10 minutes to spare. After checking it in, I inquired about the shuttle being available. Silly girl, it had already made its' last trip. Did they have loaners? No. Rentals? Yes! Lucky me. I got to drive a 2014 Corolla for 2 days while they fixed my throttle. Yeah!
I received 2 pieces of mail from Toyota during the week. On Monday, the dealership manager (in a general mass mailing) told me they would like to buy my car. In Thursday's mail, I got a check for $29.86, my settlement as part of the class action suit against Toyota for the accidents involving Toyotas that surged and killed people.
I am happy to report my car is back to normal, I didn't sell it back to Toyota, and I am cashing the settlement check tomorrow!
As I read this I thought of my old Toyota Van (1980 model). That thing had 265,000 miles on her when we sold her and she was still running fine. I would have diagnosed the problem as your fuel pump going out. That's what happens...it just dies when it has been running fine. We had that, too, and Mike changed the fuel pump and no more problems. It always made me nervous, though, and eventually that's what made me want to sell it. I suppose this picture is of your rental car. Sure is pretty!
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, a 10 year old Toyota should last many, many more years. Cars are getting better and better. Our 15 year old Chrysler van is still running with almost 200,000 miles. We gave it to Melissa and Austin and they use it as their best car. Don't let those greedy dealerships buy your car and resell it for a pile of money. You and I think along the same lines!
ReplyDeleteThat sounds really scary Jane. Did they ever FIX your car? I take it they did....and wow, that was a HUGE settlement...Hee hee!
ReplyDeleteThat sounds really scary Jane. Did they ever FIX your car? I take it they did....and wow, that was a HUGE settlement...Hee hee!
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