At band practice on Friday, the car turned over slowly, and then it seemed to be running on only five cylinders. The car was shaking side-to-side. No matter, I thought, an injector valve is temporarily stuck or a spark plug has fowled. I can still get this thing home. Well… at the first stoplight, the car died. I was able to revive it just as the light turned green, but I had to keep throttling it to keep the car from stalling. Not good; fortunately, I hit green lights all the way to the last turn light that would take me to my street. It died there too, even though I was trying to keep the car at 2000 RPM. Again, I was able to get it started just as the light turned green, but now I had to rev it to 4000 RPM and higher to keep it going. It was at that point that the engine warning light turned on. The car started to smell of burnt oil. I got it into my garage, looked under the car to see if there was any liquid dripping out; nope. I opened the trunk to see if the radiator was steaming; yup. I let the car cool down overnight. This morning, I took the car around the block a few times and the car ran just fine – no problems at all, though the engine warning light is still on. Whatever happened last night remains a mystery. I did have to put a half gallon of water in the radiator, but with so much steam last night, that is expected. How a car could get so overheated in just 2.5 miles is beyond me.
Alas, now I must once again make an appointment to get the car serviced. I’m out of warranty now, and I don’t really have the money for yet another service call. Even under warranty, these service calls have been costing me $2500. At some point, the cost of service will outpace the initial cost of the car.
Sort of funny: when I put in an email request for service, the sales department called and asked if I simply wanted to trade my old, out of warranty car for a new car. I guess Porsche people don’t keep their cars for long before they get a new one (I’m sure many of them lease their cars). I won’t be one of those people, not because I don’t love the car, but because I am about to become a teacher, and teachers don’t make enough money to drive a Porsche.