Misadventures in South Carolina

Okay, so there was at least one thing with my brother's visit that i was going to have to relate (with apologies, again, for the delay). With my brother being here for our birthday on the 25th April (we have the same birthday, albeit three years apart), i decided to take the day off work and we went for a ride up the road to Myrtle Beach - about 90 mins away, as my brother had a thing for wanting to play miniature golf and apparently Myrtle Beach has about 50 of the damn courses. All was going well, we went for a walk on the beach, had something to eat, played a round of golf (my brother lost :-) ) and then headed back, as we were going out for dinner and drinks that evening. Suffice to say, we ended up taking a wrong turn in Georgetown and on highway 17A instead of highway 17 - but all was not lost as we were still going in the right direction. And then we got a flat tyre. Now, not one to stress, i knew i had a spare in the back, and also a jack but had overlooked that fact that we didn't have a tyre wrench. Having turned down help from a truck that had stopped to ask if we were okay (on account of the rather redneck-y appearance of the inhabitants), we had no other choice but to flag someone down.

Fortunately, we were lucky - the gentleman in question was very helpful - given we were stuck in the middle of nowhere (a few minutes before i had commented on how i would like the peace of living out there, but not the 'being so far from everything'). Anyways, we hoisted the car, loosened the nuts and...the wheel wouldn't come off. So, i used the man's phone (mine had no battery!) to call my insurance recovery who said they would help, and then we decided to move the car off the road more (as my sister-in-law Wendy had suggested a while back). Whereupon the wheel loosened. Thus, not wanting to wait 45 mins for recovery, we swapped the wheel (the spare had low air) and headed back up the road to put some air in, then back to Georgetown - where they were unable to repair and couldn't replace the tire. Thus, we drove back the 60 miles to Charleston on the spare (at no more than 50 mph). In the end we were only two hours late and had managed to rebook the restaurant and let everyone know the time change (by quick calls and text messages!). The most amusing thing of the whole event was that my brother was convinced we were about to be set upon by banjo twanging South Carolinians a la 'Deliverance'. Suffice to say, i told him that SC folk don't usually play the bango...

The Long Wait...

It was with some dismay a couple of weeks back that I decided my car needed to pay a visit to the garage as it had begun to play up. Initially, i thought it was the damp (it had rained heavily and the car hadn't been used for a day or two) but the problem persisted. Basically, the engine had begun to stutter, sometimes cutting out and generally just being hard to drive in low gears and speeds. However, on the way to the garage the problem seemed to right itself, at least for a day or so - until the 'engine check' light came on and the engine began to have unusually high revs. So, off I went to the Hyundai garage on Highway 17 (that heads out to Savannah) to see what they could do. After arranging an appointment the following Wednesday (this was the 14th), I dropped the car off early (8.00am) and they said they would be in touch by the end of the day. Of course, this didn't happen but I got a call around 8.30am on Thursday saying that they had identified the problem (the air intake or something) and had sorted it. Great, I thought, and then as garages do, they told me of other problems they had found - the rear brake pads were 'getting thin' and the drive belts (fan belts) were cracking (I found out after that this was indeed the case). THey had the parts - it would be ready by the end of the day.

So, I called later "Oh no, it's not done. Definitely tomorrow." Nothing all Friday. I called in the afternoon "Oh, yes, we made a mistake. One of the parts we thought we had, was wrong. I misread the serial number. It's on order, here tomorrow. The car will DEFINITELY be done before noon." Guess what. Noon came and went, off I went out of town and came back - nothing at all. Sunday, they're closed and Monday was a Bank Holiday although I believe they were actually open. So, Tuesday morning I finally get a call from them saying it was ready - and off I went at lunchtime to get it back before they changed their minds. Once I got their, I was told I owed about $537 - to which I politely told them to go jump. Perplexed, they asked why whereupon I pointed out they originally quoted me $425 for it all, and assured me it would be done in two days whereas they had now been in possession of my car for a week nearly. After some humming, they agreed to knock $50 off the bill and that was the best they could do - so I took it. Thankfully, the car is driving smoothly and all is well at the moment. The ironic thing is that this particular Hyundai had recently won awards for its service and record. All I'll say is, if the best in Charleston takes 6 days to sort your car out, I feel very sorry for those people who go to the worst.