Only the Good Die Young

I suppose my troubles actually started in the couple days leading up to the start of this road trip. Although my start date was delayed twice by various unfortunate events, nonetheless I was still pressed for time as departure day approached. One of the errands I meant to run back in Seattle was an oil change. My last one had been in April when I had the routine 20,000 mile maintenance done. Before that it was January. But, it fell by the wayside. No matter, I thought, I'll have the car with me on the road. I'll just get an oil change on one of the slow days. Maybe when I get to Tampa and the half way point.

I'm a fairly responsible driver. The unfortunate incident in California two weeks ago aside, I rarely if ever get tickets. I haven't been an accident since I was 24, when I smacked into a gigantic Caddy with a little plastic Mitsubishi in Key West. On this trip, I had tires that were less than 8 months old, I had the checkup under my belt, and I was paying attention to the gauges and general performance of the car.

Some time after I arrived in Florida (I actually don't remember whether it was the evening of Wednesday, September 16 or the following morning), I saw the oil warning indicator flicker on for a split second then go off. This drew my attention to the oil pressure gauge, which I noticed for the first time was quite low, about 30-40 psi. It should be around 60, and had been the numerous times I looked at it during the trip. I figured it was a good thing I was as close to Tampa as I was, only about 6 hours, so I could take the car in for service.

This I did the morning after arriving at Sheldon's. As it so happens, Sheldon and his wife Gretchyn also own a couple of Nissans, so they recommended the service department at the dealer only a few miles from their house. It was a pleasant morning and I drove the Z down the quiet roads of their development with the windows down. Away from the noise of the highway and the rain-mandated rolled up windows of the day before, I now heard a distinct and quite loud rattle coming from the front end of the car as I made my way to the dealership. Upon arrival and meeting with Vic the mechanic, I relayed all the observations I had made up to that point. Vic immediately looked concerned.

After five minutes, Vic comes up to me in the lobby and says, "Ummm, sir, there's no oil AT ALL in your engine." You know that feeling you get when you're riding the rollercoaster, and you're toward the back of the train and the front cars have already gone over? Yeah, it felt like that. Vaguely sickened but always ready with the snappy rejoinder, I was able to muster, "So....what are you saying?" He was too polite to say, "Well, it means two things. You're screwed and I just made my bonus."

I don't know exactly what happened. I'm fairly certain it was NOT a total lack of maintenance. As I mentioned, I had taken it in twice for oil changes this year already. Granted, by manufacturer recommendation, it should have been three. But I don't think I'm really alone in not quite adhering to that schedule. It is true that I had just driven about 4000 miles, part of the way through the desert. This is hard on the poor beast. I should have been giving it extra love, not just shy of routine. However, I had been monitoring the oil pressure at various times and it did not show a steady decline over time. Rather it experienced a sudden jump down one day. This leads me to believe something catastrophic occurred. Perhaps I blew out a gasket somewhere on the trip. I never noticed an oil slick at any point under the car (although I could have missed it, I suppose). If this is what happened, it could have occurred while I was actually driving.

But regardless of the origins of the problem, I could not refuse to accept to the situation. I'm over 3000 miles from home, I have inadequate service records (which, truthfully, I don't do a good job of keeping anyway), I have a car that's out of warranty by a scant couple months, and I'm frankly lucky that I didn't throw a rod in the middle of the interstate, 30 miles from civilization bereft of cell phone coverage. Vic fiddled around with the car for most of the day but then gave me the prognosis I knew was coming: I had to replace the engine at a cost of over $8k plus labor.

I considered, for the briefest of moments just driving out with a new car. They had a shiny new 370Z, the trim that replaced my 350 this model year. But this was never really an option. I can't exactly afford a new sports car given my current income situation. The blue book value on my 350 is well over the cost of the replacement motor, so it makes financial sense to do the repair. And, most importantly, the 370 doesn't come in a convertible.

Engine replacement it was to be. The estimate from Vic is that the car should be ready to go on Thursday or Friday, making for an unexpected one week stay in Tampa. On the upside, they're going to replace the clutch with no additional labor cost since, y'know, they're going to have the darn thing up on a rack with the engine completely removed anyway. So why not?

Needless to say, Friday was a long and stressful day. In the evening we were joined by my former co-worker Aaron Forsythe, in town to help out at a Magic tournament. Sheldon, Aaron, Scott Larabee and I went out to dinner with a couple of Sheldon's local friends and I worked very hard to not let my gloomy outlook bring the whole group down. As the evening progressed I grew more philosophical. First off, I frankly got lucky. For all I know, I drove the thing 200 miles with no oil in the engine. It could have just as easily seized up, caught fire, or God knows what else. While I'd like to be annoyed with Nissan for "letting" this happen just after I got out of warranty, I should really thank the engineers who designed such a hardy power plant. For another, it's not like I'm spending a week in a prison in Turkey. The weather in Tampa is a little sticky as summer comes to an end, but it's sunny and warm and all around pleasant. I don't have to buy a motel room and be lonely for a week, since I'm being hosted by Sheldon and Gretchyn.

Oh, and on the purely materialistic side; there is the 400 square foot pool, jacuzzi, patio grill, and well stocked bar. It's time for this road trip to take a truly unexpected turn.