Quick Ford Tie-off

According to relayed information from the Ford dealer, the repair performed met Ford's current specifications. The flex-hose graft, properly done, is supposed to function as well as the original lines, now no longer available.

Interestingly, my mechanic was able to obtain and install proper lines. These include a flexible section, but not clamped externally.

The cost of transmission repairs rivals the price of a used car of similar vintage. The advantage of repairing this one is that I know its history and condition. I just have to decide which repair procedure to buy: transplant a used one, rebuild the current one or transplant a new (or rebuilt) one.

The transmission wizard likes to rebuild. He sounds like he works to my standard and the Gilford Guru's. I just don't know if I can afford that level of meticulousness in an eleven-year-old car.

Meanwhile, the long-suffering 1995 Toyota Corolla wagon provides daily transportation. Its age and decrepitude keep me from getting frisky. If it goes, I'm screwed.

This experience confirms that automatic transmissions are another example of the expense of laziness. A manual transmission has ONE clutch. Learn to use it. If you fry it, replacement ain't cheap, but it's a damn sight cheaper than anything inside a slushbox. Anything that performs work for you has to have some ability to think for itself. That means more parts working in greater coordination without any input from you. That means more little things that can go "sproing" and complicate your life much more than they were simplifying it while they worked.

At this point, automatic transmissions dominate. More than likely, my next car will have one, too. I'll just roll the dice the way we all do and hope I win the gamble and keep the red juice inside, where it belongs.

I notice transmission puddles along the road now more than I did before. When I see them down at the corner where the hotrod idiots do doughnuts and burn out thirty feet of rubber I just laugh at them. Along the roads and highways they tell a different story. Someone just got bad, bad news. The tow alone from some of these emergency landings would have been a chunk of change. If they didn't get the car stopped soon enough, their troubles have just begun.

And so the economy moves.