Electrical Choices

This morning I had a ridiculous journey to work - my car was being particularly tempremental, but in new and unusual ways.

I was leaving slightly late, but while it started without issue - and went around the two right turns at the foot of the road without issue - when I went to turn right into the main road, I realised I'd utterly lost my power steering. This had happened once before, and I was hopeful that it would clear up. As I was in traffic queueing up to the roundabout, I was able to turn off the engine and turn it on again - that age-old solution - in the hope that this would do the trick.

It did! While I was greeted with an ominous beeping upon reengaging the ignition, when I got to the roundabout I was able to steer around it without incident. I was able to proceed happily on my way. Except as I came off the roundabout and glanced down at my speedometer, it was still registering 0. I was definitely not doing 0. Hoping this was a minor glitch, I continued - I had little choice but to do so at that point - and navigated the car carefully for the next 6-7 miles. It is surprising how much you need to look at your speedometer, and changing gear by ear was trickier than I'd realised. Judging speed by how fast other cars are going and what gear you're in equally so.

Unsurprisingly, when I came to a point where I could turn off I decided to stop for petrol. This allowed me the option to turn off the engine, leave it for five minutes to get out of its sulk (ten minutes when you include walking slowly around the shop), and hopefully it would be behaving better on my return.

It wasn't. Admittedly I could register speed again, but the steering had disappeared to compensate. Following the best example of parents everywhere, I pulled over to the side by the garage and sat down for a stern 'we're not going anywhere until you behave yourself' lecture. After a fifteen minute wait, I decided to give it a go again. The steering was sulky but almost could be persuaded to work; the speedometer was fully engaged. I made it to work without incident.

The evening home my drive was fine. Whatever funk it was in had cleared up. I have no idea quite what it was or for that matter wasn't doing, but I have booked a long-overdue service for Wednesday. This should hopefully soothe it back to full health.