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Flying to family, and driven to frustration


Today I flew out of Kona bound for Honolulu for a three day visit. The flight was uneventful with nice views of Maui, Kahoolawe, Lanai and Molokai. My folks picked me up at the airport and the traffic was heavy as usual getting into town. While stuck in traffic I could smell something like burning brake pads coming from my dad’s car. Funny that his car’s air-conditioner is busted too just like mine so the windows are all open. His a/c repair was quoted to cost $2K to fix, thus it isn’t being fixed.

But I digress, the burning smell continued through town. We pulled into Zippy’s for some food and I checked both wheel wells in the high noon sun, I couldn’t see anything but a faint smell of burning brake pads was there. So we continued to drive home, then about a block from home smoke started coming from the right front wheel area and we finally made it home (we also probably hit every red light possible on the way back).

Here’s what I found after taking the wheel off the car.


The CV Joint boot was shredded and was probably throwing grease and rubber parts onto the brake system. The CV joint itself was probably not lubricated by now and getting super-heated by the friction which probably set the grease on fire. All the wheel parts, rim and lug nuts, were super-heated by the friction and burning which made it interesting for me to remove the stuff. I let everything cool before I shot these photos.

So now my folks are in a jam. A busted air-conditioner, both CV joint boots are broken open (on the other side too), the driver’s door lock doesn’t work and there’s a tiny crack on the front windshield. So the decision was made, not a single penny more will be spent to fix this car. Time to buy a new car.

So tomorrow we’re going over to a dealer, hopefully not too far away, to trade-in the old Ford Taurus and buy a new Toyota Camry. As for me, I don’t have a car to drive while here, I could drive the Taurus but not anywhere far.

I also spent a good deal of time working on my mom’s iMac. Updating the operating system, adding applications, setting it up so I can operate it via remote from Kona and I also gave my folks my Nikon CoolPix 4500. A very good 4MP camera that can also shoot videos with audio. Now if I can just convince them to get a cable modem.

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