C3P0, May 2008 - August 2009

Alas, C3P0 is DOA. She will either have her engine rebuilt or get a brand new one. She is currently at the local GMC dealership, being “torn down.”

Yeah, this came as a shock to me, too. I've had her 15 months and she only has 33,500 miles on her.

C3P0, like her namesake from Star Wars (yes I know he was a HE but all cars, ships, planes and helicopters are SHEs, that’s just how it works, except for Marsha’s Shorty), believed in keeping me up to date with every possible bit of information a driver could need and quite a bit more I could have lived without.

She told me about tire pressure, oil quality, engine temperature, fuel status, traction control, the weather, what language she was programmed in and how soon I was going to hit something while backing up. I got used to her obsessive/compulsive desire to keep me informed about every little mechanical detail and her symphony of beeps and buzzes were part of my daily routine. She was a bit of an alarmist and liked flashing a variety of warning indicators just to shake me up. (Between her and Phoenix, it’s little wonder I have a heart condition.) Most of the time they were false alarms, a sensor that was wired too tight or something like that.

Monday morning on the way to to work, a new icon popped up on her information center. It looked like a little engine. Great. No good could come of that. There was no message with it. Just that little image, glowing ominously. I consulted the owner’s manual. That thing is 327 pages long and do you think I could find that little picture anywhere? No.

I called the dealership. They came and got her. They called me back a couple of hours later.

“The engine is misfiring,” they said. Okay, I understood that. Sort of. Then the service manager launched into an explanation and swear to God the only things that made even partial sense were “no compression in the chamber” and “spraying oil out of the fourth piston.” I am a lot of things but auto mechanic is not one of them. She could have lost all her deflector shields and had a rear stabilizer break loose, too, for all I know.

Depending on what they find when they tear the engine apart, they will either rebuild it or replace it. In the meantime, I’m driving a loaner Dodge Caravan. The dealership assured me they would give me a loaner and although I requested something I could “fit at least one crate into,” I was not sure their idea of a dog vehicle would be the same as mine. So it was a relief to get a van this morning.

C3P0 is the third in a line of vehicles I’ve named after Claire Beauchamp Fraser, the heroine of Diana Gabaldon’s “Outlander” series. Yeah, it’s a big step from historical fiction to Star Wars but bear with me. When I got Jamie (named after the hero of the “Outlander” series), I was driving a Chevy Blazer. I loved that Blazer. It was almost physically painful to part with it but the dogs and I had outgrown it. When I got my first minivan, Tammy christened her “Claire,” in honor of Jamie, who was the reason I’d upgraded to a minivan in the first place. Claire was followed by Claire II, abbreviated C2, then by Claire III, abbreviated C3, which quickly morphed to C3P0, since I am a confirmed Star Wars addict.

There is an outside chance C3P0 will be resurrected by Friday, but I’m not holding my breath. Thank heaven the shows are local this weekend. This would be a considerably larger pain in the arse if I was planning to travel a distance, camp, take all three dogs, etc.

Rest in peace, 3P0.