Yesterday while pulling into (and out of) a parking spot at drum corps. practice the car made a funny popping noise, and shuddered like it had run over a good size rock. We called our mechanic this morning to set up a time to bring the car in tomorrow so he can road test it.

Today, while pulling into a parking space in from of Subway, we hear a slightly louder noise, coupled with the sensation that we’ve just run over a cat-sized animal. The next thing I know the car won’t move. When we get out of the car I notice that the front wheel on the passenger side is slightly to the right from making a right hand turn into the spot, whereas the one on the driver’s side it turned sharply to the left.

After two hours of hanging out a Subway, the tow truck finally arrives. We had to carefully push the car back enough so the truck could hook up. Even then the wheel on the driver’s side was dangling (it was either that or have it pressing up against the front bumper and risk tearing that off). As they were moving the car out of the spot in preparation to tow, we discovered a nice pool of dark liquid, and a nice shiny bolt. Nice and shiny generally means new, and between that and the fact that the tow-ers said it looked like a tie rod snapped at the bolts, I’m ready to have a few choice words with the garage that did our alignment. Did I mention they had to replace a worn tie rod in order to properly align the car? Grrr!