Van Trouble

My "get your van to the shop quick before it blows up" light came on Tuesday afternoon. I drug out my owner's manual and noted that it indicated that my emission control system was malfunctioning so early on Wednesday I dropped my car off at dealership, asking them to check my brakes, check my steering (hard to turn sometimes) as well as my sliding door that was having difficulties opening in addition to checking the emission control system.

They called me in the afternoon to report that some part of the emission control system did need to be replaced, as did the actuator in the door. Both were covered under the extended warranty everyone told me not to buy. This is the second time that I've used the warranty and altogether, I've saved $2500 over and above what I paid for the warranty. They also told me that the power steering problem was covered under a recall. I had to pay for the brakes and even that they gave me a discount on. Apparently, even though the emission control system is covered, the bolts that attach the part I needed weren't covered, so I had to pay for that as well. My total bill for repairs was about $300 (ouch!) for about $1500 worth of repairs.

The bad news is that I have a number of maintenance things that need to be taken care of. The total on all of those if I were to do them today would be nearly $2,000. My car is supposed to tell me when I need these services, but apparently there's some kind of malfunction in that system as well. I asked the service desk to prioritize them and I'll do them as I can afford them.

I had to rent a car for the two days my car would be in the shop. Let me tell you, driving a Toyota Yaris makes me infinitely grateful for my Odyssey. I hope God continues to bless my little van and keeps it (and the passengers) safe!