life without a car

So this probably has been the longest I've gone without a car since I tried it as part of training for my first europe bike tour. 3 weeks ago, I went out to start my car and it wouldn't turn over. My first thought would be of course battery since I didn't drive it the day before but C said it couldn't be especially since he just put in a new battery 2 weeks before. But the good thing that resulted was that I signed up for AAA that day which has a 48 hour delay before they help you. The next day, we tried jumping the car and it started.

So we thought everything was hunky dory with the car and a week later, while driving home from san bruno on 280, I hit a patch of traffic at Page Mill road so I moved over to the second right most lane. All of a sudden, the car stalled. It took me a few seconds to realize that pushing the gas pedal didn't do anything any longer. Luckily, I was able to coast over to the shoulder on the right since it was an exit only lane with few cars. I restarted the engine and things seemed okay so I exited the freeway to take the backroads home. Of course, then the car stalled in front of this little league playing field. There wasn't a good shoulder so I sort of parked myself at the entrance of the parking lot there and called AAA. I had so many moms all honk at me trying to get into the parking lot. I just ignored them because they could still get around my car if they really wanted to. I'm lucky that someone didn't come beat down my window.

So the car got towed to Say Ray in Palo Alto, the nearest volvo shop around. At first they kept saying I must have run out of gas (I had run it low but I always do that) so they put some gas in but it stalled after that. So they started taking things apart and of course, then it started working again and they couldn't reproduce it. They said they could just order a new fuel pressure control module because they thought that might be the problem but they couldn't say for sure. C then saw that there was a recall for that part so we took it over the volvo dealer who now say I need a new fuel pressure sensor. This kind of sucks because this is the exact same part I had to get replaced 18 months ago but of course the warranty is only 1 year. AGH. So my car is still in the shop because this one part is backordered for weeks. And it is kind of sketchy that two different shops thought it was different part that needed replacing so perhaps I shouldn't run the gas low any longer.

But yah, I want to go car shopping. For a dependable japanese car now.