Recently we had to change our 7-year-old car's gear box. We have a semi-automatic transmission, which means we could drive the car manually changing the gears or let the auto transmission do it for us. Most of the time, we let the auto transmission take care of it.
The problem started when it didn't want to go into first gear in the mornings or when the car is started for the first time after a long (which is usually more than 8 hours) time. It's not cold here... but it needed some time to warm up and even then, the car would jerk forward, bringing back memories of my early manual driving days. Anyways, for those of you who are able to handle a stick shift, you'll know that if the car is stationary, there's no way it'll move if the first gear's not working. Do we treat the car badly? No, we don't think so. Singapore roads are fairly smooth and we don't go around crashing into things, neither do things come by to crash into us, nor do we run over a speed hump testing its shock absorbers.
And what's this about changing the gear box?! Brought back a memory of a 6 footer I knew in high school who owned a mini cooper, one of the original ones, reversed it over a front gate holder which was sticking out from the ground and lost the gear box. Yes, that would be a reason to change your gear box...
Maybe it was just time, but 7 years is rather a young age, isn't it? The 'new' gear box is a second hand one. Our mechanic told us that a new one would cost 3 to 4 times more. I don't want to know why the car this gear box came from didn't need it and hope that it'll last us another 3 years before we have to change the car, as do most people who live here do.
No comments:
Post a Comment