Not the start we were hoping for

Day #1


Well I hate to inform you all of this, but we have a major problem!!!! The car has some major problems with it. We drove down Saturday morning to a sleepy little town 45 miles west of Asheville North Carolina, called Dillsboro. Jodi drove the first 5 hours in the morning to Whythville Virginia with no problems. We stopped for gas and as soon as I took over the problems began. The engine was running hot, very random times thought out the drive down. The worst is when we were on 26 heading toward Asheville going through the mountains. It was so bad, we had to pull over and let the engine cool for 30 minutes or so. We nursed it all the way to Dillsboro, where we meet my folks. We told them the problem and soon found out that the radiator hose was missing to the reservoir bottle. Let me first say I know nothing about cars, but I sure got a crash course in radiators and how they work. Anyways, we thought we had solved the problem. Since the auto parts stores was closing down for the evening, we decided to tackle fixing it in the morning. Jodi and I hung out with my parents that evening. We took a ride with them to see a potential spot for retirement, and after that headed into town for a beer (which was needed) and a pizza. Shacked up with my parents that night for the first night on our road trip.

Day #2

We woke up early and headed straight to the auto parts store. Got the tube I needed to connect to the radiator and picked up an extra gallon of coolant, just in case. We headed out of town aiming for the Red river gorge in Kentucky, we were feeling really good despite our bad luck. We didn't make it 5 miles down the road and we were running into the same problems. We pulled over on the side of the road to let it cool down and then nursed the car back to the town of Sylva, which is right next to Dillsboro. We didn't know what to do, we were really stuck. We were frantically looking for a auto mechanic, but it was a Sunday and all of the local shops were closed. After an hour of searching nearby city's, we finally found a Firestone shop in Asheville that was open, and they could look at our car that day. That's if we could get it there. We had no other choice but to try and get it to Asheville. We set off and hoped for the best. Upon entering the highway, the car once again acted up, running hot for a minute or 2 (red zone), then back down. This behaviour continued all the way to the Asheville where we dropped it off to have Firestone take a look at it. After waiting about an hour, the mechanic brought me back to explain a few things. This were it gets bad!!! He told me I had failed a "block test" which means there is something leaking inside my engine. Either form air being trapped or a crack in the engine, were coolant is leaking out. I told the mechanic about the previous history of the car (replaced blown head gasket, replaced thermostat, water pump and timing belt, which cost me 3 grand a couple of months prior). He told me that it was too much risk to preform any services on the vehicle, like a system purge, because if it went wrong the engine could be completely destroyed. Firestone could not take on that responsibility, because if they screwed up, they would owe me a new engine. He told me my best bet was to check with Goodyear which was across the street (Open on Monday) and the Subaru Dealer (Also open on Monday) He also recommended "not driving the car far" because he thought it might not make it. Jodi and I had no choice then to spend the night in Asheville and take our car over to Goodyear in the morning. Hopefully they could tell us whats wrong and fix it under their warranty, since all the work done a couple of months ago was by Goodyear. By this point Jodi and I are extremely frustrated and couldn't believe this was happening to us. Also, our faith in our car was slowly being diminished. We headed into Downtown Asheville (less than a mile) parked the car a walked around. We did find a climbing gym, which was nice just to get our minds off of the car for a while. We climbed for a couple of hours then headed back to the hotel for a shower before dinner. For dinner we headed back into Asheville, were we ate and drank at a small pub called "Jack of the Wood". We really enjoyed ourselves, despite everything that was happening. Got to bed semi-early to tackle the next day.

Day #3

Today woke up early (7am) drove the car across the street to drop it off at the Goodyear for them to take a look at. First off, the guy behind the counter couldn't have been more rude to me. He didn't seem to care one bit about our situation. He told me he would "try and get to it today" which we found to be very frustrating, because that car is all we have right now, and no where to go. After we dropped the car off, we headed over to Cracker Barrel for some breakfast and just chatted about different options we have. We waited for the car until 3, and we couldn't take it anymore. We went over to the shop to check on the process. The guy gave me the typical run around and told me it was a bad thermostat. The parts should be under warranty since I had all the work done to it in February. He called the warranty department and they said they wouldn't cover it, because it is a 1 year or 12,000 mile warranty, and I had 12,497 miles since the service. Since I was 497 miles over they would not warranty the parts or labor. Long story short I skated out of the shop at 6:00pm $160 poorer. We both were tired of hanging out in Asheville, and had to head out. We decided to head to the New River Gorge were we could regroup, do some climbing and figure the rest out. No more than 12 miles up the road my car, was running HOT AGAIN. We were down right pissed. We had no choice but to keep going and hope we make it to the New River. 5 hours later we finally made it to the New and set up our tent to get some sleep. We were hoping the worst was behind us.


Day #4


Slept in to around 8:30 then fixed breakfast, packed our bags and headed down to Kaymoor to do some climbing. We started off pretty easy doing a couple of laps on a 10, then pushed on to some harder stuff. Went around the corner and sent "Hardcore Female Thrash" which was awesome. Jodi and I were finally feeling like we were staring to have some fun. We ate some snacks and proceed over to 7-11 wall for a quick burn on "The Sting". I feel on my first go which was no big deal. I told Jodi I wanted to finish it up then clean it, then move on. Second go, fell again. Third go, cranked on the crimp side pull and blew my ring finger on my right hand. I heard a pop, finger went limp, and had no power at all in it. Having done this before I knew exactly what it was. That was the final nail in the coffin for us. We both hiked out of Kaymoor with complete disgust and though that this trip was never meant to be. We are both going to take a shower tonight and head over to Pies and Pints for some all you can eat pizza and tons of beer.


As of this posting, both Jodi and I have no idea what we are going to do. Our car doesn't work and now I can't climb. These truly have been the worst 4 days of our lives. I hate to inform you all of this, but wanted to let everyone know what has been going on. Thank-you for all your support and hopefully can bring you some better news shortly.