Take the Long Way Home. Car Trouble, Again!

North Coast Roadtrip travelog #7
Back home - Mon, 29 Mar 2021. 11pm.

We wrapped up our three-day weekend road trip to California's north coast today, driving some 440 miles home. Along the way we managed a handful of stops— including one to drop off some rocks, a few for attempts at lunch, and one for a serious hike on the Mendocino coast.

Had we gone "straight" home via the shortest possible route it still would have been a long day, with just over 400 miles of driving. We added to that by dodging out to the Mendocino coast, through the towns of Fort Bragg and Mendocino, to visit Russian Gulch State Park and hike 5+ miles to a waterfall there. That's what pushed us to 440 miles of driving. Door to door, it has been a 14.5 hour travel day.

Beer O'clock?

Traveling through Fort Bragg meant picking up some beer. I mean, it's always beer o'clock somewhere, right? The town is home to the North Coast Brewery, which makes several beers of which I'm a fan. On past trips through I've ordered beer samplers with afternoon snacks. But since it was only lunch time and there were still many miles to hike— and drive— I merely bought some beer to enjoy later.

"We've got a few specials right now," the beertender at the beer shop informed me, "Including a make-your-own-6-pack special. Combine any 6 individual bottles you want for $10."

"I didn't come this far to buy loosies," I snarled playfully. We both enjoyed a laugh.

Five minutes and two six-packs later I was back on the road. It's not the 44-bottle armada I bought last time I passed through town. Many of those from that previous trip I can buy locally. This time I grabbed six-packs of a stout and a dark lager that aren't carried by distributors.

A Hike and Car Trouble

Car trouble cropped up as we entered Russian Gulch State Park. After we stopped at the kiosk to pay our entry fee, the car didn't want to shift into forward gear. The gear selector physically wouldn't move to the "D" (drive) slot. On the third try it did, but only barely. It slipped out of gear occasionally. As I nursed the car down the hill to the trailhead parking area I wondered if we'd have to call AAA after our hike.

We managed not to think too much about the car trouble while hiking. We enjoyed the trek. At first I didn't think we'd done this hike before, but toward the end of the way in I remembered it. It was pouring rain last time, so lots of things looked different today with not-shitty weather.

As I've done with other hiking treks this trip, I'm skipping pictures for now because they take time to prepare. I'll follow up with them in a few days in separate blog posts.

Sweating the Drive Home... And the Next Repair Bill

We got back to the car around 5:30pm. "Maybe it will have magically fixed itself," we agreed, both of us knowing the chances of that were remote. And we were right. The car hadn't magically fixed itself; the transmission was still struggling to engage "Drive" mode.

I was already mulling what the nature of the problem could be... and what it would cost to fix. Car trouble— and the cost of repair— is/are a sore point for me right now. It's just ten days after getting the car back from the shop, with a $1,400 repair bill. The problem is different enough that I don't suspect the shop of screwing anything up, but it's still galling to face downtime and expense— not to mention the possibility of being stranded by a breakdown 200 miles from home— so soon again.

Well, the fact that I wrote "Back home" in the byline at the top of this blog tells you that we didn't get stranded. The car behaved just enough for us to get home.

And that's where we are now. Home. We arrived sometime after 10 this evening and unpacked the car. I took a shower to clean up from the long day and help unwind before going to bed. It's late already, and tomorrow's a work day.

California Covid Picture Still Improving

The Covid picture in California continues to improve. What do I mean by picture? Literally I mean the rates of new Covid infections, the rates of people hospitalized with Covid, and the loosening of state restrictions based on this evidence. But I also mean literally a picture. In this case the state chart updated yesterday, in its weekly Tuesday update:


[Link: covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/]

When you compare this chart to last week's update the differences may not be readily apparent. They're both just a mush of colors, right? But there are several key improvements in that mush. Here are Five Things:

1. Now almost 50% of the state is in the Orange Tier, the second lowest risk category. One week ago only 10.5% of the state was orange or better. That's a huge improvement.
2. Much of this gain came from Los Angeles and Orange counties reaching Orange Tier. Just those two counties represent a population of about 14 million.
3. Among other counties improving from Red to Orange are two near me, Alameda and Santa Cruz.
4. Purple Tier, the highest risk category, dropped from 6.3% of the state population one week ago to 2.7% today.
5. One of the chief underlying metrics that drives these policy changes is the statewide new case rate. It dropped from 5.5 cases per 100,000 population last week to 4.8 this week. This is lower than we've seen in 10 months, since before the 2020 summer surge.

An interesting note about #5 is that while California is still improving in key Covid metrics, the country as a whole is not. Nationwide, rates are actually up in the past week. Too many states are loosening restrictions too fast. They're acting on political fantasy, not factual reality. I continue to share these charts to show how California's policies are data driven.

Sweating the Cost of Another Repair. DIY Time?

When our Xterra developed transmission trouble over 200 miles from home Monday afternoon I felt pretty put out. I was put out not just because I was worried about being over 200 miles from home and in an area with weak cellphone reception with the possibility of being stranded, but also because it was just ten days after getting the car back from the shop from another set of repairs.

"So much for Nissan reliability," Hawk groused. And I agreed. Although repairs other than regular maintenance have been few they have been expensive. The repairs two weeks ago cost $1,400. The repairs a few years ago— when we did get stranded, and it was not just 200 miles from home but nearly a thousand miles— cost just over $2,000. And on top of that $2,000 for the mechanic we spent at least $2,000 getting un-stranded!

How much would this transmission problem cost to fix? I was actually somewhat optimistic about it. The reason was that the problem didn't seem to be with the transmission itself.

When a transmission goes bad, it goes bad in a big way— and is expensive to fix. With this problem there was no crunching or groaning of gears from inside the transmission. When it slipped out of gear it wasn't the torque converter slipping; it was the shift lever physically slipping to disengage it. Likewise, it's the shift lever that physically wouldn't move into position to select lower gears. The problem may well just be in the shift lever.

But still, it seemed like a $500 repair job at a minimum. So soon after the other repair bill, and with the car now at 103,000 miles, we were wondering if it's worth it. Yeah, $500— or even another $1,500— is cheaper than a new car, but if keeping this car going is going to be a stream of this, that, and the other thing going wrong... maybe it's time to cut our losses.

Before I called the dealership on Tuesday I did a bit of research to gain an understanding of what the problem might be. My search hit on a few web forums describing similar symptoms, and one of the posts in them had a link to a really helpful YouTube video showing a fix that requires only a screwdriver, needle-nose pliers, and a bit of forearm strength. Could it be? Would I be able to fix it myself— or would DIY stand for "Damage It Yourself"? Stay tuned!

UPDATE: I attempt a DIY solution... on video!