Vehicular Fortitude, part 4

So I went to pick up my car on Tuesday. It is nice to have the car back, even though I am about $1600 poorer.

The first thing I realized as the car shot forward was that the friction point on the clutch had changed significantly. It went from somewhere around halfway up to about 2 centimeters off of the floor. The next thing I noticed was that it became a whole lot harder to change gears. I had to pull on the stick shift pretty hard to get it to move.

So, in one of my not-so-bright moments, off I went towards home, shifting painfully and trying to cope with a clutch with an instant friction point. After a couple of miles I could no longer get the car in to any gear at all. I missed one light cycle trying to get the car into any gear except reverse.

Did I mention that the road I was on is very, very busy, almost all the time?

Before the next light cycle came around I managed to force the car into second gear. I used a side street to turn around (and almost got stuck in neutral once again) and headed back towards the dealership.

The folks at the Saturn dealership were very nice. They sent me on my way with a rental car and a promise to fix the car first thing in the morning.

They delivered. The next day my car was as good as new. Or at least the clutch was.

Hopefully this will be the end of the Vehicular Fortitude series for a while. My pocketbook can't take much more of this.