thanks, Jack Ingram. really.

If you did not catch the sarcasm in the title of this post, you will after you read the story.

For those of you who don't already know, Baron & I got a "new" car about a month ago, after our Maxima died of a blown head gasket. We absolutely LOVE our 2002 sorrel green metallic Nissan Altima. It drives so smoothly (especially compared to the dying Maxima), it has great features, it looks good, and it has a sunroof. The only thing wrong with it is that the service engine light had been on since we got it. The guys at Pigg Enterprises (shout out to the Piggs, who gave us a SQUEAL of a deal) had it checked out & told us it was the catalytic converter. They reset the light & told us to have it fixed if it came back on. They also deducted the price to replace the part from the overall cost of the car, which was great. We had also been noticing a rattling noise over the past week or so that was getting progressively worse. We were hoping that was part of the same problem. So one day I was talking about this at work, and one of my co-workers - who knows a good deal about cars - said that he thought there might be a recall on the catalytic converter for my car. So I called Jack Ingram & asked about it. Sure enough, there is a recall on the exhaust system, which includes the catalytic converter. There are also 3 other recalls on my car for minor things, so we decided to take the car to Jack Ingram to have all of the recall issues taken care of. We took the car in Monday morning. That afternoon, I asked Baron if he'd heard back from Jack Ingram.

"Are you ready for this?" he answered. That didn't sound good. That usually means no, I'm not ready for it. "They think it might be a blown head gasket." What?? Are you kidding me? There's no way. That's like going to the doctor with a sore throat & having him tell you that your femur is broken. Besides the fact that this diagnosis (or, more accurately, THEORY) sounded ridiculous, it was going to cost about $480 just to take out the engine & LOOK TO SEE if the problem is the head gasket. No thanks, Jack. So we called them back & told them we were going to pick up the car that afternoon and take it for a second opinion.

We took the car to Roger's Automotive in Prattville, where our good friend Jennifer Copeland works with her dad, who owns the shop. She & her "guys" looked at it yesterday and called Baron with a possible solution. Are you ready for this diagnosis? Anyone care to guess what was wrong with the car? It needed oil. Yep. Apparently, it was REALLY thirsty, because Jennifer put in about 3 quarts out of a possible maximum capacity of 4 quarts. So, either the car is leaking oil, which we see no visible signs of, or the place where Pigg Enterprises took it for an oil change employs a bunch of idiots. And according to Jennifer, we shouldn't be surprised if the latter is true.

So we will be keeping an eye on the Altima for the next week or so for signs of an oil leak. Hopefully, this will be the end of our car fiasco. The moral of the story? Don't take your car to Jack Ingram. I of course, did not need this experience to learn that lesson, but when you have recalls, you have to bite the bullet & take it to the dealership. But you would think that the SUPERB mechanics at Jack Ingram would know to check the oil. Nice.

P.S. A huge thank you to Jennifer for helping us out. Actually, we need to thank her & her husband, Justin, for being our heroes this week. Our dryer broke Sunday & we crashed their house to borrow theirs so our clothes wouldn't get all mildewy on us. They also helped us with our Maxima when it was dying, they helped us find our new car, and they are always willing to help us out when we need them for anything. Thanks, Copelands!!