Car trouble

Last year I wrote about how my oil light went on when I was driving home from work. That's unlucky! But it happened when I was just 500 feet from my garage. That's lucky! But then my car started burning lots of oil, and I had to take the car in for major repairs. That's unlucky! But I had bought an extended warranty with the car, so the repairs were covered. That's lucky! But a month after I had the repairs done, I was driving home from work, and the oil light went on again. That's unlucky! But it happened when I was just 3 blocks from home. That's lucky! But now the repair shop doesn't know how to fix it. That's unlucky! So I guess I'm unlucky.

I was driving off a job site two weeks ago when suddenly I heard this clattering noise coming from under the hood. I pulled off the road, but by then this thing that looked kind of like a coat hanger had fallen off. Maybe it was some sort of wire retainer? How could I tell if it was even part of the car, or if it was some debris that I happened to pick up from the road surface? The car still seemed to drive OK, but shortly afterward, the check engine light came on. When I took the car in to the shop, they told me I needed to get two sensors and a valve replaced. All but fifty dollars is covered under warranty, but I'm still not feeling very lucky.

I figure 70,000 miles isn't enough for the car to be ready for the scrap heap. It wasn't long ago that I finished paying it off. One of my coworkers has the same kind of car, a Volkswagen Jetta, and he's had tons of trouble with it, but he's also put twice as many miles on it. He pointed me to a website where I could hear familiar tales of auto woe: MyVWLemon.com.