Vehicular Woes

Like most of you, I take my vehicle in every 3000-5000 miles to get the oil changed. I tend to rotate my tires every 10,000 miles or so. When I get it serviced, the fluids are topped off for me. The only items that I actually do myself are pumping gas and replacing wiper blades. Well, I guess I also clean it on occasion, but that is different.

My grandmother always filled her tank before it reached the half empty mark. That is probably a good practice, but I tend to wait until right about the time that the pesky little gas light pops on. Of course that light was designed to be there for people like me. When the light turns on, I know I still have time to fill up. The key is remembering to do so.
In my 16 years of driving, I had never run out of gas... until yesterday in Columbia. Or at least I thought I ran out of gas yesterday. What a fiasco!

Here is a play by play of how it went down:

Monday morning I notice my gas light. After grabbing breakfast, I didn't have time to stop for gas so I planned to get it that afternoon on the way home. That afternoon I was on my way home from work, with plans to meet friends out at 6:00. No problem. I had plenty of time. There was no rush. I should have stopped for gas, but of course I forgot.

Just after I passed Greystone Blvd (the Zoo exit), I noticed that my truck was losing power. I immediately glance down and see that I'm below E. Uh oh, I'm empty! My truck began to cut out and I ended up coasting to the side of the road. By this point I had no power steering since the engine was off. Kind of scary, but luckily the traffic was minimal. At that point it was 5:20.

I was on the side of the road, just where Huger St splits off from Elmwood Ave. I had intended to meet Stacy at the house to give her a few items, so she should have been there waiting on me at that point. That worked out perfect, so I called her and ask her to grab my gas can and meet me. I'm sure she had other plans for the night, but jumped to action to help and I really appreciate that!

Stacy and boys showed up with gas. I put the gallon in and... no luck. Surely there is no need to reset anything to get the engine running again. My mind was racing. I know absolutely nothing about vehicles... nothing. I thought that perhaps the one gallon was not sufficient and the fuel lines need to be filled. I hopped in her car and we filled up the 5 gallon tank, and repeated the process. No luck.

Oh, it's also worth noting that I had talked to my parents a few times as well and they reaffirmed my thoughts that the dang truck should crank once gas was added. The next step was to call Chevy to see if there is anything that needs to be reset. Doubtful, but worth a try. After over half an hour talking to some helpful people and some idiots, it was evident that adding the gas was all that should have been needed. Oh, one funny point. The last guy I spoke with was going through manuals and trying to be helpful. After 5 minutes of 'helping me', he says, "now, when you say gas, you do mean fuel, don't you?". Uh, seriously. It's obvious this dude would not be able to help me.

I decided that it may be something besides the fuel that caused this. Perhaps being low on fuel was just coincidence. I popped the hood and looked inside. Of course I had might as well have been looking at the inner workings of a nuclear bomb. As I said before, I don't know anything about vehicles. One thing I do know is how to change the oil, so I decided to check the oil levels. The dipstick proved to be dry. That is never good. I jump in the car with Stacy again (at this point, the boys are getting hungry) and we head back to the gas station to get a quart of oil. Back to the truck. Added the oil. Still no luck. I checked the dipstick again and seeing that it was still dry, the oh shit moment set in. This was suddenly beyond just getting the truck cranked again. It was time for a tow. Stacy leaves to take to boys to eat while I handle the tow.

Let me pause for moment to say two things:
(1) I had a road trip to Atlanta this weekend. I am so thankful that this did not happen there, or even worse, somewhere between here and there. That would have totally sucked!
(2) Last Thursday when I drove to lunch, my check engine oil light came on. I would have followed up on that, but when it went off moments later I assumed there was nothing to worry about. Not the best idea in retrospect.

So back to the events of evening. I called my insurance company, USAA, and they ordered a tow for me. They said it would be 30 minutes. I swear it was like 8 minutes later that the truck pulled up. I was very impressed with the service. By this point it was 7:30. My truck was being towed. I was hungry and annoyed. I kind of left out the part of the story where all though this process I was getting very annoyed and really pissed at some points, but somehow after the tow truck arrived, my annoyance was alleviated. I accepted the situation and moved on. The drop-off of the truck was easy. Very quick in fact. Then I hitched a ride home with Stacy and after 2 hours of this fiasco, she was actually able to pick up the things that she was originally dropping by the house for. She had no idea what she was getting in to. hahaha.

I wish this story had a great ending but in reality the story is still not over. I have not heard from the shop that is checking out my truck. I don't know what to expect but I am eager to find out what the deal is. I'll update this story as it unfolds. On a happier note though, after all of the dreadful events of the afternoon, I was still able to go out with friends for a little while and enjoy a nice dinner. I guess that is the happy ending to the dreadful afternoon.