Just Blowing Off Steam or...

Against my better judgment, someone-I-know has been driving an overheating car for the past 2 weeks. There was talk of getting a friend to replace the thermostat (one of the multiple reasons a car can overheat). But sometimes it takes experiencing the consequences to appreciate that the needle in the red on the temperature gauge really means: "Quit playing jr. mechanic and get this fixed immediately!"

My first encounter with a car that was overheating came when I was at FSU. I was driving an Oldsmobile F-85, one of the new "compact" cars and one of the first to actually have seatbelts. I sold seats at $5 a head for a trip to Atlanta. With exactly $25 in cash and no credit card, we headed north. Halfway there on the 250-mile drive, the car started overheating. We stopped periodically and filled the radiator and limped on into Atlanta for the weekend. Fortunately I was staying with a friend because I had to spend the entire $25 to get the radiator flushed out. And fortunately that was all it took.

Since then seeing many a car stranded on the side of the road with steam coming out or worse yet with a fire engine alongside putting out an engine fire, I have vowed to never be in that situation if I can possibly help it. That means paying attention to those warning lights that signal problems like an engine that is overheating.

Someone-I-know called several times in the middle of the night last night to say that there was now steam coming out from under the hood and that the car was being towed to a garage today. I just hope that the engine wasn’t already irreparably damaged.