Tuscon

Sorry to leave you in suspense from my last post. I'm sure many of you have lost sleep wondering what the diagnosis for my dear old Fusion was, and unfortunately, I have bad news to share.

I think it is time for me and my car to part ways.

We have had a good run - 8 years of road trips and running errands... but it's time for her to go to the great car heaven in the sky.

Well, not really. She's probably fixable, but I don't think I will be paying the money to do it. I'm in the middle of weighing my options of investing the money to get the solenoid replaced OR just cutting my losses and moving on to a new car. I'm leaning towards the new car.

So even though AutoZone told me that my car's problem was the solenoid (which is a part having to do with the transmission, for those of you like me who thinks solenoid sounds more like a brand of self tanner). But when I took my car to the recommended transmission repair shop, they decided to try to flush out my transmission and replace the filter before diagnosing the problem as the solenoid.

SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS LATER...my car is still not working and they diagnosed the problem as the solenoid. Excuse me, can we say RIP OFF?

I have spent the last several days carrying around a load of stress trying to determine if I want to keep throwing money down the drain trying to fix the car...it could last me several more years if I get it fixed....or it could break down again in 6 months and then I'll be back at square 1. Decisions, decisions.

I wish I would have given the Fusion a name like I did my first car - Tuscon. Tuscon was a gray Mazda 626 straight out of the 1980's with a tape deck and a bad paint job, and cloth burgundy interior to boot. She was every bit as awesome as you can imagine.

The story behind the name Tuscon requires the pop culture knowledge of the movie Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion. There is a scene in the movie where Romy and Michelle rent a convertible to drive to their high school reunion which is in Tuscon, Arizona. As they take off for their big road trip they shout out "Watch out Tuscon, here we come! Woo hoo!" and the car drives about 2 feet before backfiring, sputtering, and dying in the road. To really visualize what I'm talking about, watch the video here. (*Warning, the video has cuss words - I apologize!)

So flashing back to the day I got my first car. My 16 year old self came home from school one day to find my brand new (but actually very old) car sitting in the drive way, and I was SO excited to take her for a test drive! My sister was home so we hopped in the car and pulled out of the driveway to go on a quick little joy ride down the road, both of us brewing with giddiness and giggles and shouting a few woo hoo's for good measure.

We made it about 2 feet down the road when the car sputtered....and died.

And this pattern of sputtering and dying continued any time that I would try to jam on the gas and take off quickly. I had to learn how to take off in my car very slowly in order to avoid it dying on me.

Now that I think about it, it was kind of a genius move on my parent's part because it FORCED me to drive slow if I didn't want to die a death of total embarrassment when my car died in the middle of the road. So my family dubbed her "Tuscon" and we all look back on her with great memories and fondness.

It's too late to dub the Fusion, but maybe I'll come up with another equally awesome name for the next one! I just hope the new name doesn't spawn from a story about sputtering and dying in the road.