samedi, avril 10, 2010

life of angels

This morning I dropped my car off at the local garage to get the oil changed. I remember the day I first learned that word, vidange. The local swimming pool was closed for "vidange" and when the lady told me that I understood "vie d'ange" or life o f angels. How romantic for word that means to empty or oil change...

I had asked Mystery Guest to kindly call the garage last week and book an appointment in for me. I thought bad enough a woman calling a garage but a foreign woman? Hello rip off! So he booked in an appointment for me at 9:00am today and confirmed over the phone with the guy that it will cost me 70-80 euros. I dropped off my baby this morning and cause the garage is kind of in the middle of nowhere I got a loaner car:Now I've heard bad things about loaner cars but this is my first time getting one. Oh my GOD is this thing crappy! Some old Ford with the most ancient gear shift I can imagine, windshield wipers that wouldn't turn off and absolutly no power. There are a couple of big-ish hills between the garage and home and I could barely get up them at 70km an hour... poor cars stuck behind me, I felt so bad for them being stuck behind this piece of junk!

Anyway made it home in 1 piece but decided to park it infront of the neighbor's house, didn't even want to try to bring it up the driveway! I have to go back at 11am to pick up my car and I know I will appreciate having Dora back! Let's hope the dude sticks to his price as well...

3 commentaires:

J a dit…

Is it just me or are oil changes a total ripoff everywhere in France? I never paid more than $20 for one in the US, and I had to pay like 100€ here...

MilkJam a dit…

I don't know, this is my first car! But I do know that we did the oil change ourselves a couple of months ago and the oil was around 45E by itself!! So I'm happy to pay 30 extra euro or so for someone else to do it just because it saves so much time.

Vivi a dit…

I think the reason they're so cheap in the States is that we're encouraged to get an oil change 3-4 times a year. My husband is happy if we change the oil once a year! Drove me crazy at first but it doesn't seem to be doing any harm to the car...

When I learned the word vidange, I remembered it by "vide anges," so getting the angels out. :)