As a student with my family and friends spread out all across Auckland, I am quite reliant on my car. I drive a (relatively) old car, as I’m sure many of you other students do, and with age tends to come a variety of strange features in the form of odd noises and weird features. Whenever I experience one of these, I usually turn the music up and/or assure my fellow passengers that everything is completely fine, all the while pushing back the ‘I hope I don’t die in this car’ thoughts to the back of my head.
Despite all these not-so-fun features of my car, I like to maintain absolute faith in its ability to get me from A to B (someone has to!), which is why I felt such betrayal when my car failed me on one occasion a few weeks ago.
Cue a variety of odd noises and the occasional burning smell when driving, which I happily ignored for about a week until one trip home smoke began to pour from the bonnet as I was driving along. I tell you, there is nothing more terrifying than having a smoking car and seeing a pedestrian on the side of the road take one look at it and begin backing away. At this point I was desperately hoping the smoke wasn’t the ‘this car is gonna blow’ type.
Turns out it was a simple case of a belt melting which is very fixable and not likely to cause an explosion – luckily for me.
I decided in light of this event, this is my PSA to all of you to stop ignoring all those slightly alarming details in your life whether it’s your car or something else. It will probably save you a whole lot of stress and money in the long run!