Man what a nutty day!!
I have a '94 Ford Exploder that finally gave up the ghost (transmission went) and it's just not worth the money to invest in a tranny rebuild. So Saturday I venture over to Atlantic Auto Auction. This is a HUGE volume auction house that moves about 500 or so cars EVERY Saturday. It's where the dealers buy. Why pay retail. You gotta go several days before to really check the cars out, because most are sold without warranty. I ended up getting a great buy on a 2000 Land Rover Discovery. The thing is immaculate, has all the options, runs great and low miles. I nabbed it for $3000. Now the fun part. A lot of these vehicles sit for a while and as such have dead batteries. mine included. I went to pick it up today, they jumped it, I gave them my paperwork and off I went. I got about 3 miles down the road and at a major intersection it cut off. Dead as a dead can be. Not even enough juice on the battery to light up the interior light. So here I am on the phone with AAA trying to explain where I am and why it won't start. Cars are laying in on the horns behind me, I got a killer sinus headache and am now a nervous wreck! The lady from AAA tells me to cut on the flashers and I tell her I don't even know where the button is (too many buttons and knobs and shiny objects!). Then she tells me to open the hood, but I can't find the !*#x*!! hood release!! I get out and have to wave cars around me to the right or left. Now two guy walk up to help push it to the side into the 7-11 parking lot. Well guess what. You can't shift it out of park without battery power!! That's news to me. These guys are trying to push and yelling at me to put it in neutral. I yell back it won't shift. They tell me to put my foot on the brake first....I'm gettin more steamed (not at them) as they are rocking the thing and it ain't moving. Then AAA calls back and tells me the tow truck will be there in about 25 minutes. I keep telling the lady I'm blocking the middle of a major intersection. So I get out, walk to the back and direct traffic for the next 25 minutes. That was exciting, especially the tractor trailer that forced a volvo into a parking lot as he moved out of the lane directly behind me right into the path of the volvo! Now would you believe a car rolls up, and a woman asks me if the vehicle is for sale as it still has grease pencil writing all over the glass from the auction and a DMV transport decal on the back. I said, "Sure lady, would you like to test drive it now?" What a yo-yo!! Finally the tow driver arrives. He was well familiar with the shifter interlock, throws a jumper cable on the battery and I shift it into neutral and he pulls it up on the roll-back. New battery is installed!! what a day!! whew. Thought I was gonna get run over!!
Matt B.
