How Did They Know?

You know what I got in the mail this week? Of course you don’t. I got some AAA cards. This is only interesting considering the weekend that I had and the fact that it took me two extra days to return from NJ because…wait for it…my car broke down on the side of the highway. This is the first time in as long as I can remember that I have found myself on the side of a freeway as cars whiz by me at 100 mph. Anyone who has had this happen knows that this is not a fun experience.

Luckily I was only 20 miles from my friend’s house when it happened. Oh what is it, you ask? As I was speeding along dreading the four hour ride home, I heard a strange noise, like I had run over a stick or something. I should have stopped, but who really does. The next indication that something was wrong was the warning light on my dash that stated “Batter Is Not Charging.” This made me look at the battery gauge and sure enough it was no longer at 13 volts. It had dropped down to under 10 volts. As I was thinking, what the hell does that mean, white smoke started to pour out from under my hood. This was a sure tell sign that I needed to pull over.

I stopped and opened the bonnet (it is a Jaguar after all) to see my car overheating and smoke coming from everywhere. It was immediately apparent that I had blown my radiator hose, or at least that is what I thought. In reality the hose had slipped off the manifold and water was steaming everywhere. I wasn’t really sure what to do. I let it cool for a few minutes, cursed that I didn’t have AAA and then decided to try and fix the problem. I pushed the hose back onto the manifold, tightened it down with a quarter (MacGyver like) and poured my bottle of water into the cooling system. My goal was to make it to the next exit and find a station to fill up the cooling system.

I drove about a half a mile before smoke stated coming out again. I was approaching the toll gate (Pennsylvania charges people to leave NJ, as they should). I pulled into the Welcome Center right after the gate. I again opened the bonnet again to see that the hose had again slipped off the manifold. I again tried to secure the hose and then used my water bottle to fill up the radiator this time. I was smart enough not to try and leave the Welcome Center right away. I mean I still had 200 miles to go so no need to break down in the middle of Pennsylvania. I started the car and let it run for a few minutes to see if the hose would hold. Yeah, it didn’t hold. It slipped off and water started shooting everywhere. Now one thing I was very smart about was I always monitored my temperature gauge to make sure I did not over heat the engine. Jaguar engines can cook if you let them overheat. My problem was more a loss of coolant and water than an overheating problem.

At this point, it was already about 8 PM, I gave up and called my buddy to come get me. He did and I went back to his house for the night. I had the car towed in the morning to a local Jag shop and let them look at it. Here is the strange part. Apparently that “stick” I heard on the highway was actually one of the belt pulleys that connect to my water pump and alternator. Battery Is Not Charging starts top make sense. The pulley had just fallen off the car. It might have hit the hose which in turn cracked my manifold (it’s plastic) and cause the coolant to shoot out onto my engine which is why I got all the white smoke.

The dealership ordered my parts and had me on the road the next day. My new mechanic did tell me that this problem was probably caused by my old mechanic not understanding how to set up the cables. It looked as though the old mechanic had loosened that pulley to try and tighten the belt instead of doing it the right way. Just goes to show you that a good mechanic is the most important thing when it comes to owning a vintage expensive car.

You know the bad part about breaking down on the side of the road? It isn’t the hassle or the cost of repairing the car, it is the loss of confidence in your vehicle from that day forward. I spent the entire 4 hour ride home

Now let me get back to my surprise mail from AAA. Needless to say I have never gotten junk mail from AAA and I find it really suspicious that they have chosen now to send me this offer. Talk about targeted marketing. I started wondering how they knew I broke down this week. I mean did my mechanic give me up. Or maybe it was the tow truck guy getting a kick back from AAA. I started thinking maybe they are much more sophisticated than that. Maybe they are using spy satellites to monitor the highways in our country just waiting for some unfortunate soul to break down. Then they zoom in on the license plate, run a cross check with the DMV and presto…three days later you get an offer in the mail. I think I remember seeing a job posting for computer hackers at AAA some years ago.