Ye Olde Karaoke Battle Wagon

Well here I am stuck at home with no wheels. This weekend the "Olde Karaoke Battle Wagon" decided it wanted the service I have been promising it for sometime now and not delivering on. Generally I take reasonable care of my vehicles but one of the vans problems has been going on for a very long time without me getting it fixed.

My 97 Dodge Caravan, which I affectionately call the "Olde Karaoke Battle Wagon", due to the fact that we originally bought it to haul our karaoke equipment, has been leaking transmission fluid for about a year and a half now. This was originally my ex's vehicle but when it stopped shifting she parked it at her girlfriends parents house and bought another vehicle. This van is not your soccer moms mini-van. It has leather quad bucket seats and a v-6 that will smoke the tires on command and sometimes when I don't mean to. It's also hauled more gross tonnage in the time we've owned it than most guys' pickup trucks. It spent most its time packed to the ceiling with half a ton of karaoke equipment and was rarely unloaded, so it was always carrying that much weight around. This van has earned the right to be called "Truck" more than most trucks have (sorry just had to defend my vehicles honor there for a minute.)

Last year "T2" (my ex) asked me "would you take over the van and the payments, I can't afford it", to which I said, "Yes but you will have to get the vehicle to me first" (I didn't know where it was at the time). She said, "The transmission has gone out and it is going to cost $750 to get it replaced." I then said, "How do you know that the transmission is toast and it will cost that much to get it replaced? Where did you take it to get it checked out?" she said, "I haven't taken it anywhere because it won't move and that is how much it cost to get the transmission replaced on my other car." I said, "Have your girlfriend "J" check to see if it has transmission fluid, and if it's low put some in, because this can stop it from shifting." She called me back a little while later and in a very excited voice said "We put transmission fluid in it, and now it goes forwards and backwards!" It was all I could do to keep from splitting a seam laughing. They delivered the vehicle to me a short time later.

That was about a year ago and I did have my friend "N" put the van up on the rack at the garage he works at, which is when we found that a small 4" x 4" access plate on the side of the transmission was rusted and leaking the fluid. We didn't have the part to replace it so I kept driving it and kept putting transmission fluid in it when it was low. This plate is not a major problem so I guess it just became easier to add a quart of fluid in every week than to bother getting it fixed.

About a month ago another problem started, it began leaking power steering fluid. I started pouring power steering fluid into it all the time saying to myself "I really had to get it into the shop to get it fixed." Well the power steering fluid requirements got to be excessive, with me having to put fluid in every day. About two weeks ago the front end started making noise, which got me to worrying that this may be the rack & pinion going out, which is a sign when you start to loose power steering fluid. Having to replace the rack & pinion would not be cheap by any means. So I decided that I had to get it to the garage.

I took it down to a local garage on Wednesday after work. This garage is run by two older fellows that are really nice and not only don't they rip you off on the work they do, but sometimes they forget to charge you for some of the things that they do work on. The one that was there on Wednesday said that the other fellow wouldn't be in until tomorrow and he did all the scheduling, so I should bring it back Thursday. I went back in on Thursday and the other fellow said he wasn't able to put it up on the rack since they were full and to bring it back Friday night. Well after I left there the front end started getting very loud, with the kind of crunching, grinding, squealing noise you really never want to hear coming out of your vehicle. Friday morning I decided not to drive it to work, because if that was the rack & pinion I didn't want it going out while I was flying across the highway. I coaxed it the mile or so down to the garage and told them "it had decided it wanted to come to the garage now."

The one fellow called me back Friday evening with the good news, that it wasn't the rack & pinion. The power steering fluid loss was caused by a bad pump, and all the racket had been caused by the inside brake pads being worn completely off (funny the outside ones were like brand new) to the point where it was metal on metal. So I'm going to need a new plate on the tranny, rotors, break pads (maybe calipers), and a power steering pump. This will be fairly expensive but nowhere near what it would have cost to replace the rack & pinion.

The "Olde Karaoke Battle Wagon" has served me so well and for so long that I really should treat it better, besides the fact that I really can't afford to get another vehicle right now. It's worked hard over the years and is still reasonably young though it has quite a few miles on it. I think it's still a good vehicle that I can get many more miles out of. Maybe that's why I like it so much, it reminds me a lot of myself...