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Roadside assistance is the most awesome thing ever

Soooooo my car went south tonight.  But actually... it kinda worked out.  Here's the story:

I'm pretty sure it was my clutch.  I'm just soooooo glad and thunkful that I'm home safe and sound.  This could have happened to me on Friday night when I was in the city!  Could you imagine?!?!?  That would have been no fun at all.

This was probably the best case scenario ever for car problems.  Here's the setup...

So I went to church tonight then after church I went for a nice awesome run in Valley Forge park.  Then I got in my car and started driving my way to get gas at the cheap gas place on Valley Forge road that I normally fill up at.  Then from there I was going to go write at Iron Hill and chow on some food.

Well about maybe somewhere just after where valley forge and valley creek road meet I started to hear a not good noise.  It was very grindy clicky ticky something or another noise.

Then allllll of a sudden... the lights all started coming on... check engine and oil light and seatbelt light and what have you.

Then they flashed and blinked and the noises got worse... then the car started going and then not going and then going again... I put my flashers on and kept going looking for a good spot to pull over.  There really aren't a lot of safe spots to turn off on that road.

Well... my little car chugged and huffed and puffed and made lots of little clicky grinding sounds and then finally I saw the perfect little place to turn into.  A little strip-mall plaza.  I turned in and JUST as I was turning my car in...

It gave out.  All the lights came on, the engine died and all the power assisted stuff gave out.  I had to REALLY turn the wheel hard!  And the brakes basically didn't work.  I just kinda coasted it into one of the spots.  I had to push pretty hard on the pedal to even get it to slow as I coasted into the parking spot.  I actually had to use the parking brake to get it to stop!

That was a little scary.  Anywho so there I was in front of My Favorite Muffin.  Parked.  And my car was not going anywhere without some help.

The first thing I did was call my progressive road side assistance.  They dispatched a tow truck.  They said it would be there in about an hour (it showed up in 45 minutes).  I decided to head over to the little VF Pizza place.

I always thought it was a little pizza shop... turns out it's a pretty nice little italian restaurant.  The service was great and the food is pretty tasty too!  I'm actually eating my left overs now.  I ordered a burger and fries and sat and wrote.

When the tow truck guy showed up he just lifted my little car up onto the bed and whisked us away to the chevy dealer.  I decided it's best to just have them do the work.  I know I'm going to pay a premium and that it's going to cost a pretty penny already because well... if your car needs to be towed it's definitely not a cheap little fix.

So hopefully they can get it all fixed up and back on the road.  I left the key in the dropbox and I'll await their call.

I walked from the dealer to the closest train station and then ended up being able to get the VERY last train back to wayne from Paoli!

And here I am.

I am just soooooooo very thankful that things went the way they did.  I couldn't imagine if my car had click clacked and tick tacked and huffed and puffed and grumbled to a stop on the side of the road while driving into the city!  Or if it had done that while driving to Maine!  I leave for Maine next month and that would have just been VERY scary for this to have happened anywhere else than it did.

The car is at about 80 thousand miles so it's about right for the clutch to go.  According to how stuff works clutches can generally last anywhere from 50k to 175k.  So I'm on the lower end of that... buuuuuuut I will say that A: my car is definitely not a higher end sports car.  Soooooo I'm guessing it's a cheapy clutch.  It was 11 thousand dollars off the lot brand new in 2004 when I bought it.  The clutch and the car are 8 years old.  And then... B: This was my very first stick shift car.  Sooooo I mean the very first year of me driving that car or at least the first 6 months... I really most likely did a number on it.  I'm suprised it lasted as long as it did!  I kind of wish there was a warning system of some sort for a clutch to go out.  They say sometimes it starts to do this slip thing... which I think I kind of felt actually pulling out of the parking lot valley forge but I'm not entirely sure.

One thing it made me realize is that things can fail at any moment and so you have to be prepared for things to fail!  I've had this roadside assistance but never had to use it.  It definitely came in handy tonight.  All the towing was covered.

Hopefully the new clutch won't be a super duper expensive fix.  But we'll see.  Anywho so I'm hoping it won't be more than a few days in the shop...

Well my plan is to take the train to work and back home tomorrow so we'll see how that goes.  All I know is that with the way this happened... I'm pretty sure there's someone up there watching over me and helping out.  That's for sure.