The pride and the pain
Thursday: I paid for the van and got a cover note for it. I was told it needed ball joints.

Friday: I had the van's registration transferred to me and handed in the old title for transfer into my name.

Saturday: I took my mother up to visit her brother. The visit was appreciated by all. So was the van.

Sunday: Did nothing that involved the van.

Monday: I drove the van to work and took it to a valuator at lunch time to get a more formal assessment than the one I got on Thursday. After lunch, I called the Suzuki dealer and was told that he ball joints were part of the control arms. I drove to the dealer after work to buy the control arms. I came home in horrible traffic, stopping along the way to fill the tank, as I did not think I had enough petrol to get me home in that traffic. Less than a mile away from home, the car began behaving very strangely. First gear, which had been quite all right up until then, was suddenly very tall, and I could not move away from a standstill smoothly without a lot of clutch. By the time I got home, there was the strong smell of burning rubber.

Tuesday (today):
I left home very early to get to the mechanic without much traffic, to avoid the trouble I had yesterday. First and second still felt suspiciously like third and fourth. the garage wasn't open yet, so I parked outside, locked the van up, and walked to work, slightly less than a mile away. I informed my colleagues that I might be late, did some work, and then walked back to the van, drove it into the garage, and left the instructions, including to check the transmission for problems.

Shortly after I got back to work (early) and was settling in, I got a call from the garage to say that I needed more parts. I walked back to the garage, took the van, drove to an ATM to pay on the credit card for the parts I bought yesterday, drove to the dealer to buy the other parts they needed, and drove back to the garage with the parts. During this drive, the transmission problem was still evident, and the burning rubber smell was evident when I got back to the garage. I walked back to work.

At 4:30 pm, when my work day ends, I called the garage and was told that the car would be ready in a half-hour. I called home to tell them I was going for the car and I walked to the garage, taking a detour to an ATM to pay off the parts I bought today in case the garage bill would have been close to my limit.

The bill from the garage was huge, but not as much as the combined cost of the parts I had bought at the dealer. However, when I left the garage, the transmission, which had been serviced but not repaired, was just as bad as before. By the time I got home, it took me an eternity to go up the short incline from the road to my gate. My sister came in behind me and saw the ordeal. I must have got the real first eventually, but it took a long, long time.

I am going to take the van to the dealer to have the gearbox fixed... at the end of the month. I have gone as far as my budget will allow. I will get the documents and the validation to the insurance broker and have them set up the policy, and then I will have the van parked for a month.