My Worst Nightmare

Ordinarily I wouldn't recount my personal adventures with cars because they're fairly boring. Usually it amounts to me dropping a wrench on my foot or something like that.

Last night, though, was a completely different story.

I drove about 300 miles last night and into Friday morning while coming home from college. I made it up I-16, through Atlanta and was only 45 minutes from home.

I was in my trusty 1996 Oldsmobile 88 LS sedan.

This isn't my car. However, this picture is exactly like what I drive.

Mine's been a reliable car and it's been in the family since it was new. It has GM's 3800 series V6, which is regarded as one of the best V6 engines ever made. Mechanically it's like the Pope: infallible.

The transmission is a three-speed with overdrive, which kind of sucks. I can tell that it needs another gear, at least, at high speeds. But, like the engine, the tranny is bulletproof and still manages to return decent fuel economy. On the trip up the Olds got between 30 and 35 mpg.

Anyway, I left Savannah at 10:30 p.m. and stopped at a QuikTrip north of Atlanta at 3 in the morning to top off the tank. Four gallons later, I got back into my car and turned the key.

Nothing happened.

Up to this point, my Olds had been it's usual competent self: a highway cruiser that ate up the miles like a dieter going after German chocolate cake.

But now I'd fallen into the automotive version of Purgatory. I was stuck with a dead car nowhere near home at an hour when nothing was open.

So, I called in backup (my mother) and we spent 10 or 15 minutes trying to jump start the damn battery. Which didn't work. In a last ditch, and panicked, effort I ran over to Wal-Mart (thanking whatever executive thought up the "open 24 hours" idea) and bought a brand new battery for $89.

I returned to the gas station and quickly performed a basic battery transplant, while praying that this would work.

The Olds cranked and roared to life. I felt like God's gift to mechanics.

I sped home and finally got to sleep. I would like to state that I'd been up for 24 hours straight at this point. The sleep was good.

Now I need to figure out why a three-month-old Die Hard Gold car battery dropped dead. I don't know if its the alternator (which powers the car while its running and charges the battery) or if the battery itself is defective.

It could be either one, or a combination of the two. However, we went to Sears, they tested the block box full of acid, and determined it to A-OK.

Which is a bunch of BS.

If one battery doesn't start a car and the other does, the first battery must be defective. So I'm getting the battery, and alternator, tested tomorrow somewhere else.

Results, and pictures, will follow.