A Tribute to Murphy…

Or better known as – what can go wrong will.

Those of you who know me well, know that I have a need for speed. I like fast cars and fast jet skis. I’m not so much about top end as the fun of getting there. I’ve earned the name “Linda Leadfoot”. As I’ve gotten older I’ve really really REALLY tried to ditch the car problem and drive like grandma. Cars are great toys. Cars are EXPENSIVE toys. That money can always go to a better place.

However, we still have one very fun very fast little car in the family. It’s an Audi S4. It’s not a new one, and it is coming up on the 100,000 mile mark, but it still looks and runs like new. 2.7 liters of 250 HP twin turbo joy under the hood, a 6-speed manual tranny, and quattro all wheel drive. My baby is as surefooted as a mountain goat in snow and ice and hugs turns like nobody’s business. However, we’ve been seriously debating selling it because we don’t need it and I’m unemployed. We inherited a nearly new car that gets great gas mileage from my dad and sadly the Audi sits in the garage more days than not. I think that the S4 knew we were going to try and take it to a dealer this week that is running a special “buy your car” promotion (limited time only! – uh yeah, right) to see what they will give us…

Yesterday while rounding a turn and doing some fancy footwork I was alarmed to find the (ABS) and (BRAKE) lights coming on along with a very loud warning beep. Uh oh. What was that? I wasn’t going that fast. REALLY – remember – GRANDMA! I wasn’t sliding and the (ABS) didn’t engage. Then, a little closer to home on a straight approach to a stop sign… there it went again. This can’t be good. This is not something you can have going on when you are thinking about selling a car. It’s like I have Herbie the love bug living in my garage throwing a fit.

I spent this morning diagnosing the problem with a little prodding from my husband who was at work. Gotta love him. He never says – “oh honey I’ll look at that when I get home – don’t worry about it.” He always says – “why don’t you see if you can figure it out?” He expects me to be able to do all of the mechanical and electrical things that he can do. Sometimes I can and sometimes I really screw things up – but that’s a story line for a different time.

So, this morning found me crawling around under the dashboard looking for the connector plug for the VAG so I could hook the car up to my PC and get the diagnostic codes out. Yikes. ABS controller problems. The bad news is that there really is something wrong. It is fairly common. If you take it to the dealer it will be about $2000 to fix. Double YIKES! The good news is that there are aftermarket solutions available that aren’t anywhere near that expensive.

I don’t get it. Why do cars decide to break down precisely when my severance and vacation time pay ran out? Murphy. Good old Murphy. Always have to watch out for that guy.