On Tuesday the 12th, Chris felt that I should go ahead with having the mechanics take apart the the engine block to see if there is damage as well as. I agree later on in the afternoon, Chris calls and tells me that the overheating was so overwhelming that the short block (yes, the short block that was only 3 or 4 months old) in addition to all the radiator parts and the other miscellaneous charges. I got the fax and it said $7,015. I didn't know what to say. I had no idea that it would be this high. I decide to not get all wound up at that moment and that I would handle it with a clearer mind in the morning. Chris called me on my cell as I was walking to the Escort asking me pointedly to give him the ok to begin ordering parts for the repair. I must have really sounded irritated and annoyed on the phone (which I was in real life) because Chris ended the call with, "let me see what the parts department and I can work with you on." Perhaps I should be that nasty more often? I'll get things I usually wouldn't get.

I decided that because Subaru had ruled against my claim and was holding me responsible for all the repairs, I would liked to have had a outside mechanic make his assessment of the situation and then try and price out a repair amount. Over the past few weeks, I have continued to work with Paul at Art's Automotive. He listened to my explantions, often answering my questions before I had formed them. There were times in which he, like Candy from before, were able to explain how a piece or system worked and thereby gave more pieces of the engine puzzle.

On Thursday, Subaru came back with an estimate of $5,800. Chris apparently had negotiated for me to pay a certain number of parts at cost. The estimate from Art's was $4,500. Significanly less. I was about to arrange to have the car transferred from Oakland Subaru to Art's Automotive. I called Chris and it was only then that he told me that I was on the hook with the dealership for $900, essentially the amount is has taken them to disassemble the engine and to do the diagnostic. This brought the HRS estimate to be $5,300. I decided to keep the car at the dealership and have them deal with it.

So what is this about legal action? It took me a while for what was happening around me to sink in. But my Dad was right from the beginning. I did nothing wrong, although it took me a while to realize that it wasn't my turf to determine who was to blame, but to simply recognize that I wasn't to blame. Because of that, I slowly became incensed that I was being hit with a huge bill for something that I didn't cause. I spoke with C, my friend and colleague Shahana's husband. He told me that I should just get the car fixed and simultaneously begin the process of legal action against Subaru of America (SOA). I wrote up a detailed list of all the service work that had been done on the car since my parents first leased it back in Seattle in 1999. Every minor and major service was done under the auspices of a Subaru dealership. C is now in possession of all those documents and will write an initial formal letter of complaint to SOA. After that if we need to continue down this path, C will refer me to someone who is more versed in this kind of law. At this point, I'm along for the ride.

Lastly, in writing up the car's history, I think I may have a theory as to why the car overheated twice. We are sure that the reason the car overheated here in Oakland was because those four bolts holding the fan/motor assembly had loosened and disappeared causing the assembly to fall into the radiator, which lead to overheating. But back in Indiana, we had the same overheating leading to the replacement of the short block, but we never figured out why the overheating occurred in the first place. If we put it all together, perhaps back in Indiana, that fan/motor assembly was still attached to the shroud, but the bolts had begun to loosen and the entire assembly was being tossed around but still physically, albeit loosely, attached to the shroud. Perhaps, the fan could have caused some slow leak in the radiator and thereby causing overheating to occur, but with the assembly still attached, a mechanic would not have noticed something was loose and the fundamental problem could have been passed on without having it fixed.

I'm done with cars, at least for now.