So the starter dies in the Kia...

Ok so the starter on the Kia hasn't been well lately. I think it started going bad on Saturday. It was a difficult start in the cold weather, because for some stupid reason, I just had to go out and get some things that day, even though Sunday I'd be right out again anyway getting the local paper. 

I had noticed there was some rough spots in the starter working on Sunday, and even today. In fact, I had problems getting it to do something in the first parking lot I was in, and some problems but not as much in the 2nd parking lot. It wasn't until I wanted to leave the Post Office and go home that the starter finally died. Well, not so much as died as it was still spinning, but nothing was happening with the engine.

So in some sort of panic, I located a phone. It was a good thing that I remembered the pay phone in front of the old GTE phone building, because my damn Motorola Tracfone wasn't getting a network signal.

I called family, then attempted to call a wrong number and left a message for my mechanic - which I kinda knew even though the annoyed guy called my number back at home and told me I got the wrong number. $1 in quarters on 2 calls. (They give your money back when you get the phone company's recording for a non-working number.) Thankfully, the toll free number for Triple-A (aka AAA) didn't require any money.

So I get the guy and he collects my particulars. Asks if I'll be riding along to the mechanic and I thought he also asked if I need dropped off at home. Which I do ask for. I have Gold+ membership after all, but even then I get only 1 call due to mechanical breakdown. But at least the towing up to 100 miles is free. I'm probably less than 2 miles away from my mechanic, and likely home as well.

So we get to the mechanic, and I tell him that he's probably sick of me being here so much. I explain the situation and all, and it might be 2 days or so (no problem actually) before he can get to it. I hope the estimate isn't too high. He explains hearing something spinning in there is possibly a good thing.

I go back to the truck and I tell the guy about dropping me off at home, and he tells me they're really not supposed to do that.... Um, what? That's not the impression I got from talking to the AAA guy earlier.

So I try my phone again - no network. But at least I leave it on and proceed to walk down the driveway, back out onto the road, and towards the next main road. Thankfully at some point, my phone makes a noise and that tells me it's got a network. It's a Tracfone spam. Well, they are useful for something after all. I call my younger sister's number and thankfully my brother in law was home by then and my 2nd niece who answered it - well, they heard me leaving the message - finally got someone to help me get home. Otherwise, I'd have walked all the way back (not that I didn't need the exercise - but I would have likely ended up collapsing due to the pain).

At any rate, I asked him to see if there's a way to check for shorts that would cause battery drains, asked him about the coughing the car would do going uphill at 40 mph with less than half a tank of gas, and an estimate on getting the emergency brake working.

So now I'm waiting on what it'll cost for the starter. I hope I don't have to go back into debt too deeply to fix this. It's not going to be a decent couple of days coming up...