A car that drives

I’m a couple of days late with my gratitude post this week. On Sunday, while driving home from shopping with my son, the car gave a couple of thunks and then wouldn’t drive. I did eventually get it to move, but it was very sluggish from a stop (had to floor it). Shifting from drive to low had no effect; the car still didn’t want to move. Had to have it towed to the dealer for service on Monday and didn’t hear back on what was wrong until last night.

I was afraid it was the transmission.

It was not; it was a bad cam shaft position sensor, which meant the engine didn’t know how fast it was going. Instead of thousands of dollars, the price tag was only hundreds. When road testing the car, the service department found a few other problems that I’d been sort of aware of, and I okayed fixes for a couple of them now.

When I drove the car home, it handled like a dream. Braking was smoother than it’s been in months, and the car accelerated smoothly.

A working car and a not-unmanageable bill are on the top of what I’m grateful for this week. How about you — what are you grateful for?

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.