Public Humiliation II: The Tables Have Turned

A few days ago, astute reader Amy C pointed out that the curious maple syrup smell in the car should be taken as a sign that the car is in urgent need of automotive attention, rather than an oddity to be casually discussed over bon bons and hot tea, as we had been doing. Luckily, five years into our tenure in Rochester, we have recently (last month) found a mechanic we trust. Which is good since for a while there we were down to zero cars that were acceptable to drive (the windshield wiper snapped off the ford in mid-rain storm last week. and the inspection was up).

We called on Monday and brought the car in on Tuesday. The guy at the desk (who wears a mechanic's uniform but seems to...man the front desk, albeit very cheerfully) noted the same dire potential diagnoses as Amy, particularly the heater core, although he did note that "sweet smell" is pretty common, while "maple syrup smell" he had never heard of. I don't know about you, but I am not one to mess around with the heater core (MELTDOWN! EVACUATE!), so I was really glad we were able to get the car taken care of so soon.

At lunchtime I got the first of several phone calls indicating that there was no evidence of any actual coolant leak, and was it possible that we smeared syrup on every surface of the car? Maybe with sausage? And then forgot about it and freaked out and called a mechanic?

They kept it overnight for observation, but still didn't find anything. To their credit, they resisted the urge both to 1) charge us a bunch of money anyway and 2) mock us too heartily to our faces. Maybe they think I have that thing where you take your car in to get looked at all the time because you like the attention.