Yesterday was the last day of my summer-vacation. Which means that today is my first workday in four weeks. Which is a bummer. Mrs. and I were heading back home yesterday from the "countryside". We decided to split our trip back home to two days so "we don't have to spend the last day of our vacation sitting in a car" (to quote The Matrix: "Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony"). So we drove few hours in saturday, and few hours on sunday.
At least, that was the plan.
As we were cruising along the freeway at nice 130km/h, something happened. At first, we felt a kinda of jolt. We both noticed it, and I instinctively reduced the speed to about 110-120km/h. I thought that it might be the wind that caused it. Nothing else seemed to happen, so we just drove on. About 1-2 minutes later, this horrible screeching noise fills the car. It sounds like the car is screaming in agony. Whoops, signal to the right, reduce speed, drive to the embankment, stop the car, and turn on the emergency signal. As the car stops, this horrible smell of burning fills the car. Not good, not good at all. I always thought that things like this happens to "someone else, but not me".
Anyway, I'm a card-carrying member of Automobile and Touring Club of Finland, and I called their helpline. After a bit of juggling around, I'm patched through to a nearby "road-service dude". He's currently busy with other project, but he does give me technical advice. I can turn on the engine without any problems, and clutch seems to work. I can even put in a gear, but if I try to drive, it seems like it's trying to move (the revs drop, as I release the clutch), but the car simply wont move. Then I notice that I can't put the gear back on neutral. After a bit of struggling I manage to do it, so I can put it on reverse and take out the keys from the ignition (in Saabs, you need to put the gear on reverse in order to take out the keys). No idea yet what the root-problem is, but the car is not moving anywhere.
I also did the traditional "pop the hood, and take a look inside", even though I knew that I have no idea how to fix engines, let alone spot any signs of trouble. I guess that's just one of those things you are supposed to do when your car breaks down.
During this, the Mrs. had called her father, and he was on his way to pick us up. we were about 140km from home at that point. And the road-service dude (who also had a towing-company) agreed to pick up the car during that day, all we had to do is to deliver the keys to him, and he would handle the rest. He did pick up the car, at around midnight. If he had wanted to, he could have just gone home to sleep, but he promised us that he will pick up the car, and he did. All in all, we sat in the car for about two hours, before being picked up by the father-in-law.
This morning I called the road-service dude and asked about the car. The verdict: The gearbox is totally destroyed. It took him quite a bit of time and effort to "collect" the car, since the front wheels would not move an inch: the gearbox was totally fused. Crap.
Well, as bad as this thing is, there are good things to mention here as well: Thanks to my father-in-law, we managed to get back home in a reasonable time. The service from the Touring Club was outstanding, easily worth the 45e I pay every year (they do help non-members as well, but I feel that this is a service worth paying for). And last but not least: the "road service dude" went above and beyond the call of duty in order to help us. Not only did he collect our car in the middle of the night, he's also replacing the engine and the gearbox (it's easier to replace them both, than just the gearbox) for a very reasonable sum. And the "new" engine has 100.000 kilometer less on it than our current engine. I'll make sure to recommend his services to everyone I know, he provided us with outstanding service! My father-in-law was also so impressed, that he's going to join the Touring Club as well.
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