My "New" Car

"Be kind to your Ass, for it bears you" ~ John Muir, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive

Cars have never been very important to me, with a couple of exceptions, a 1961 VW Beetle and a 1991 Mazda Miata.

In 1965 I got the 1961 VW Beetle, which we had until 1975. Patty and I took our honeymoon to the Grand Canyon in that car in 1967. We parked it at my parents' home in North Bend from 1968 to 1970 while we were overseas in the Peace Corps - strangely, the "Eugene McCarthy for President" sticker that was on the rear bumper when we left was no longer there when we returned home! We drove it cross-country from Washington State to New Jersey in 1970 when we moved there. It was our faithful ass for the five years of our domestic exile in New Jersey. We drove it back and forth between New Jersey and Washington State a time or two. We drove it from New Jersey up to Wolfeville, Nova Scotia in 1973 to meet some relatives - but that's another whole story. We left the '61 Bug in New Jersey when I graduated from Rutgers in 1975 and we moved back to Washington State. I always regretted leaving the Bug. We both loved that Bug. Patty says, "Never love anything that can't love you back," but I think we both really loved that little car. It was our Ass, and it bore us well for a long time.

But this story really starts with a bad day with another car I really liked, my little blue 1991 Mazda Miata. I don't remember when we bought it, I think it replaced a very forgettable car, a 1988 Subaru Justy. We bought the Miata from a used car lot in Bellingham. If the '61 Bug was the Ass, the '91 Miata was the Race Horse. It was a sheer pleasure to drive. You didn't so much as get in that car as put it on like a glove. You became one with the road. It had a stupid racing stripe that I always meant to have removed or painted over, a canvas top and a removable hardtop. Patty enjoyed racing around with the top down on sunny summer days as much as I did.

Anyway, one morning in 2003 I was driving the Miata on I-90 from Snoqualmie to a meeting in Bellevue. The traffic always jams up on I-90 in Issaquah around SR 900. This particular morning, I was, as I frequently am, pre-occupied thinking about the meeting. I just plain was not paying enough attention, and by the time I realized the traffic was at a dead stop on the freeway (WHY does traffic come to a dead stop on an eight lane freeway, anyway?), it was too late. Jam on brakes, lose control, spin out - and slide under the trailer of an 18 wheeler - all in a nanosecond, not even enough time for my life to flash before my eyes. Miraculously, I walked away with a few minor lacerations and my one and only traffic ticket (inattentive driving, Trooper Monica Hunter was evidently in a good mood that day). The Miata was not so lucky. I emptied the glove box at the scene, and that was the last I saw of that car.

We had a 1997 Ford Expedition Eddie Bauer Edition that we had bought used in February 2003 to tow our first C-Dory that we had just ordered in January, so I was not in a huge hurry to replace the Miata. And I must say, that Expedition was the most luxurious car we have ever had. It didn't get great mileage, but I didn't drive it far, and it was an excellent tow vehicle for the 22 foot C-Dory. One day in the fall of 2005, though, we saw another VW Beetle for sale in Birch Bay. It was a 1971 Bug. It was yellow, and the body and interior had been very recently restored - it looked great. We took it for a test drive, and it seemed to run OK. Decent tires. Lights, turn signals, horn, radio - all systems good. We bought ourselves another VW Bug! An added bonus, It came with a nifty roof mounted luggage rack and four studded snow tires on VW rims. It was deja vu all over again.

This was in 2005 though - so why am I writing this in 2010? Well, it seems we were sucked in by Bondo and a cheap Maaco paint job...the car was mechanically what they technically call a "piece of crap." The first thing that I became aware of was that the brakes needed a little work, so I took it to Shaffner Motors, a VW specialist in Lynnwood. Shaffner discovered that it needed just about everything under the car repaired or replaced. So we bit the bullet for a pretty hefty repair bill. I didn't ask Shaffner to look at the engine, though, as it seemed to be running fine.

Soon after I brought it back from Shaffner, the motor started running poorly. Then I made my big mistake. I drove it to a local auto repair shop. They scratched heads, tinkered, and for another hefty bill, sent me on my way. I barely made it home. The next morning, it wouldn't start. And there it sat. In my driveway growing algae. For four years. Patty was always on me, we need to fix it up or get rid of it. Getting rid of it was appealing but with what we had into it compared to what we could get for a non-running VW Bug, we decided to give it one more shot. Plus, we had sold the Expedition and in December 2006 we bought a 2004 Titan pick-up to tow the 25 foot C-Dory. The Titan is a wonderful tow vehicle but an awful for the daily commute. So getting the Bug running as a practical commuter car was appealing too.

The only problem was that Shaffner Motors had gone out of business. Places that work on old air cooled VW engines are few and far between. We finally hooked up with a place in Fairhaven in Bellingham bear the Alaska ferry terminal, John's Auto Repair. John has a fleet of 11 VW camper vans that he rents out, and repairs all types of German autos. I had a VW tow bar that Donovan, WG7W on my ham net, had given me when he moved from his home at Dugwalla Bay on Whidbey Island to what he calls "the old folks home" in Oak Harbor. So we washed the worst of the algae off and hooked the Bug up to our Hyundai Tucson with the tow bar, put some magnetic towing lights on 'er, and bravely set our for the 100+ mile tow from Fall City to Bellingham. Amazingly, we accomplished that mission without incident, and dropped the car off at John's Auto Repair Friday afternoon, July 24th. We were on vacation at the Crab Palace the following week, and were hoping the Bug would be ready to drive home the Sunday we needed to return to Fall City.

Kim, the mechanic at John's who worked on the car, was great. I got regular progress reports by phone. A new battery, a valve adjustment and plugs and points got it running. But to get it running well, it needed a new carburetor, distributor and voltage regulator. John was still waiting for the carburetor when we had to leave, but he called early the following week, and I took care of the bill over the phone, and he put the key under the mat. The bill was pretty reasonable - $500 in parts and $300 labor to rescue this albatross. I drove it home Sunday, August 2nd.

But we weren't quite done yet. Kim surprisingly had not changed the oil, and the oil was old and dirty. Fresh oil is the life blood of the air cooled VW engine. So with a certain amount of fear and trepidation I dove into the oil change. There is a drain plug, which was easy to remove with a 21 mm socket. Then there were six nuts holding a cover that I removed with a 10 mm socket. Under the cover there was a screen, that was a little difficult to get out, but I just asked, "What would Mike Gilmore do?" and gently worked it one way then another until it finally came free. Cleaned 'er all up with solvent, then put 'er back together with new gaskets and new copper washers that were in an VW oil change kit that I had from many moons ago. The right turn signal didn't work, and the windshield wiper blades were toast, so a trip to NAPA got those items handled. I popped in new bulbs for the turn signals, which solved that problem, and amazingly, NAPA had new wiper blades for a 38 year old foreign car - even the sales guy was surprised they had them. Last weekend, I washed the last of the algae out of the hidden corners and went over everything with Blue Coral Polish, and damn - she does look good. And more importantly, she runs pretty dang well. I have driven 'er to work a time or two, and Austin drove 'er to work yesterday."

So there you go. My "new car" is a once-again functional 1971 VW Beetle that we bought in 2005. I am religiously studying my John Muir manual. Next up: valve adjustment. Only time will tell if we can keep our Ass alive here...