I bought a brand-new car that soon had transmission trouble. The warranty replaced the transmission with a new one, so my family and I decided to take a road trip and drive it from Alabama to Atlantic City, N.J. However, in the middle of the night, the brand-new transmission froze. We pushed it back into a parking space and hailed a cab. The cab took 20 minutes to get us to our motel and charged an exorbitant amount of money. When we arrived at our hotel, I looked out the motel window and realized we could walk back to our car because we could see it from the motel window.
For a steep fee, we towed the car to a transmission shop and had the auto repair shop rebuild the transmission. However, the warranty would not cover another transmission charge and the shop would not take our Alabama check. So I asked our credit card company to double my limit in order to cover the repair charges. I paid off the credit card as soon as I got back to Alabama. To make things worse, we realized we all had the flu while driving back home.
-- E. Gayle from Alabama
Make sure this doesn't happen to you: Get your car checked for any potential problems before a road trip. This small but preventive tip could save you loads of money and a headache.