Weird things that break when your car is old

My daily driver is over 20 years old. Obviously as a car gets older and higher in miles you have to replace things like tires, breaks, belts, etc. However, this year I've had three things break that I've never seen before.

First it was the flasher relay. If, like me before this happened, you have no idea what this, don't feel badly. I'll tell you the primary symptom you'll most likely notice: no turn signal indicators- no lights on your dashboard or the clicking sound when you activate them. My brother the mechanic walked me through the troubleshooting steps: Do your flashers work? No. Do your break lights work? Yes. Thus, he narrowed the likely problem down by phone. Since this is quite the safety issue, I had this repaired quickly.

Not long after I got that fixed, my driver side window would no longer roll more than halfway down. This is really more of an inconvenience than an urgent issue, so I drove it like this for a while. Thankfully this vehicle has manual windows, so it was a pretty simple and inexpensive repair. Fun fact- the car is so old the only place my brother could find the window regulator was at a junkyard.

The most recent item happened this week. I got a new battery for this vehicle on Sunday after it conked out last Friday. Tuesday morning I got in it to go to work and nothing happening. No lights when I turned the key, no low battery clicking sound, just nothing. I was really steamed about this. I just bought a brand new battery, and I'm dead in the water again. I got in my other car and headed to work, fuming as I drove. When I got home I got ready to jump the dead vehicle so I could take it to the auto parts store and have both the battery and alternator tested. As I looked at the battery I noticed the positive cable clamp seemed really high, so I pushed it down before I got the jumper cables. As soon as it was back in its normal position I heard a clicking noise. I got into the car and found out that sure enough, that was the problem. When I looked closely at the clamp, this is what I saw:

It's cracked, thus it doesn't hold the cable on tight. This same thing happened to me a couple of other times this week. Frustrating, but easily remedied in the short term. I did some temporary securing of the cable yesterday, and I'll have the clamp replaced eventually.

Driving old cars can save you a lot of money with no payments, cheaper insurance, and inexpensive registration. It also gives you the opportunity to learn about weird things that go can awry.

What a difference a detour makes

Once of the main roads I use to get to and from work is down to 1 lane for about a half mile due to construction. A half mile isn't much, but the backups it causes are horrendous. There is a back way I can use, but of course that is closed entirely for another construction project. Happy happy joy joy. After taking around 20 minutes to move a mile on the way to work week before last, I decided something had to give before my sanity did. There is an alternate route for the back way that is currently closed. I had tried it before and somehow got turned around. I was now desperate enough to try again.

The next morning I set out a few minutes early with my trusty GPS. Lo and behold, I didn't even need it. The detour was very well marked, and the route was great. It goes through a developing industrial park, and there is no traffic. On the way home that day I found an even better route that is now my daily way to work and back. It is so nice to just get in my car and drive. No traffic, just cruising along. An additional bonus is this route has 1 stop sign between me and the interstate. My normal route from that point has 5 stop lights. The new route is slightly longer but much more pleasant. What a difference a detour makes.