July 15, 2007 - Blown Engine

            I got a call from Francio today.  It appears that the engine in Cab 103 has blown, albeit this isn’t a big surprise to me.

            

           Yesterday was a busy day, I wasn’t keeping track but I probably took 15 rides or so.  It was a little busy for me to check all the fluids in the car.  Truthfully I’ve already gotten a little lax about this.  The trip (taxi log) sheets too for that matter.  It takes time to do this each day, although not much, and just taking the time to check the oil and coolant can take a few minutes.  This may not seem like a long time, and it’s not, but in that few minutes a few drivers may clock into work and I may be a few spots back in the taxi order (lineup).  This may cost me a fare at the end of the night, and if the average fare is probably around $12 that is a good enough reason to get right to work.

Anyways, towards the end of my shift I heard this sound that appeared to be a knocking in the engine.   It didn’t sound terrible and I felt that perhaps I was over analyzing things…

So yeah, the blown engine was primarily my fault because the taxi had only like a quart or two of oil when Francio finally checked it.  Although Francio didn’t check it immediately either.  He thought that he would wait until the engine seized and the car was undriveable before he checked it. 

After hearing of the bad news I received a strange call from Catherine.  She indirectly accused me of destroying the car, though in a strange way.  Catherine told me that since I had not been washing the car it was likely that I had not been checking the oil either.  These are things I consider to be unrelated. 

I had not been washing the car, this much is true, but for different reasons.  I don’t wash the car because it costs me time and money and customers really don’t care if the car is dirty, unless the car is absolutely filthy perhaps.  It’s like painting a turd, sure it may look nicer, but it’s still a turd.  I really don’t appreciate Catherine’s passive-aggressive manner of talking to me about these matters.  Anyways, many of these cars have racked up hundreds of thousands of miles, things are likely to break sooner or later.  That doesn’t exonerate me in the current situation however.