Personal Story: The Demise of My Toyota Corolla

This is a story that happened to me in November of 2024, and because of time I have not had the opportunity to post it.  It was a heartwarming story that I wanted to first post for Christmas, and then for Easter, but at each holiday I could not get to it.  You may have had a similar experience to this.  Nonetheless I hope you enjoy reading it.

A particular Thursday in mid-November—the week before Thanksgiving—was a rainy day, and I drove to work and back in the rain.  My car, a Toyota Corolla, drove fine.  That night I drove over to my mother’s house, and on the return leg back home the car stalled on startup but after a few cranks of the key it started up and I got home.  As a preface I should say the Corolla was 16 years old with over 138,000 miles.  It was up there in age, but Toyotas typically go more than those amount of miles, and even my mechanic, Rafi who you will meet further down, the month before said the car had a lot of life still in it.  I guess he was wrong.

The next day, Friday, the car would not start up at all.  I tried, it just cranked but it would not turn over.  I called Triple A (AAA) to either get a boost because I suspected the battery (it was four years old, and it was the first really cold day) or get towed to my mechanic.  The AAA service man charged the battery, but it still just cranked without turning over.  The AAA guy said it might be just the ignition, but he really thought it should kick over.  Finally, I had him tow it to my mechanic. 

The mechanic finally got to my car Saturday morning and told me it had nothing to do with the battery or the ignition, it was the fuel pump.  OK, that was surprising, but it made sense.  If fuel wasn’t pumping into the engine, it wouldn’t start.  But I did drive to and from work on Thursday with no problem.  His estimate was going to be over $850 with tax.  Wow, ok, but the car wasn’t going to be ready until Monday. 

Monday came and the mechanic said there’s something wrong.  There must be a short in the electrical system somewhere.  The car won’t stay on.  What?  He needed to find this short or the car was not drivable.  OK.  I’m wondering where is this going.  Now I’m getting panicky.  I took Monday and Tuesday off from work because I did not have any means to get there.  The Wednesday before and the Friday after Thanksgiving I always take off, so the week was accounted for, but come Monday I will need a car to get to work. 

I checked with him on Tuesday.  He said there is something wrong with the engine.  The cylinders are not giving any compression.  What???  This is getting ridiculous.  He now needs to do diagnostics to figure out what is going on with the engine.  What am I going to do?  I still need a car.  Rochelle is convinced he’s taking me for a ride (ha, pun not intended) but I do trust him.  He’s the owner, his name is Rafi, speaks with a thick Israeli accent, and I’ve been going to his place for a long time.  He used to have two shops, and for something like 20 years I went to the other shop managed by his sister-in-law named Gayle.  Gayle was always straight with me and honest.  I had complete trust in her.  But during Covid they had to sell one of the shops—the one Gayle ran—and do business from the one he managed himself.  Rafi is nowhere near as good a manager as Gayle.  His shop is always hectic and chaotic.  I had thought about leaving and finding another place.  I even told him he should let Gayle run his place.  He just smiled and said in his deep, staccato Israeli voice, Gayle is good.

Once I heard engine problems, I knew I could no longer trust this car, even if he fixed it.  All I could feel now was chaos.  The car I trusted for 16 years was in turmoil, my available finances were not handy, and I needed to get to work come Monday.  And all week I had been cancelling my mother’s doctor’s appointments because I didn’t have the means to take her.  And I’m racking up this huge car repair bill for a car I will probably not drive again.  I’m imagining this bill is going into thousands of dollars. 

Come Wednesday morning, the day before Thanksgiving, I can’t locate the owner but the woman who answered the phone said they are still doing diagnostics.  OMG, at this point I’m a wreck.  I have to buy a car and will probably have to rent one to get to work because I’m not just going to buy any car, and I just don’t buy used cars from a bad experience I had when I first got my license.  So, I called my mutual fund company and withdrew enough for a good down payment.  I knew exactly the car I wanted.  I’ve wanted a Toyota RAV4 for a couple of years.  It was going to be my next car.  I researched prices that morning.

That afternoon when Matthew got home from school, Rochelle, Matthew, and I went to the Toyota dealer.  As it turns out, it’s lull time for them before the after-Thanksgiving, Black Friday storm.  But they have been having their Black Friday sales all week, and no one else seems to realize it. I am hooked up with this really nice, young salesman who happened to go to the same high school that Matthew is going to now.  We’re having a great conversation.  They are four RAV4s on the lot, none the color I would have wanted but the silver one was definitely acceptable.  After an hour of going over the cars, making the deal, and another hour of getting the insurance and plates (they were ready for the big Black Friday crowd), and another half hour of getting the car prepped, I am literally driving a new car home that day.  I was stunned.  In the past it has taken me weeks to get a new car.

As soon as I bought that car, everything settled into place.  The chaos morphed into order just like that!  I could feel heavenly peace.  Thanksgiving was nice, and I loved driving the new car and figuring out all the neat gadgets new cars have now.  We had gotten Rochelle a new car last year and she has all the electronic things that are so cool.  I don't have as many in my new car but still it was great synching the phone to the car computer and listening to my podcasts and music. 

But there was still the old car to resolve.  At this point I was dumping it (donating actually) so I wanted them to stop working.  I called several times Friday but no answer, so I figured they must have taken the holiday weekend off.

I called Saturday morning for the heck of it and to my surprise the woman at the desk answered the phone.  They had been open on Friday.  Why didn’t anyone answer the phone?  More chaos!  I wanted to say, get Gayle to run your place.  The woman said Rafi wanted to talk to me.  Yes, I wanted to talk to him too.  He’ll call me as soon as he can.  Urgh.  More delays.  Now I’m thinking about how I’m going to argue against this bill.  If the car wasn’t starting because of a short, then the fuel pump was never the problem.  If the fuel pump was the problem, then they caused the short when they put it in.  Where the engine problem came from, I have no idea.  It ran fine last time I drove it.  I was resolved I would not pay for anything above the fuel pump replacement.

A couple of hours later, Rafi called.  He would like to speak to me in person.  I said I’ll be right there.  I have a new car!  So on the way I’m getting my arguments together in my head.  No, I am not paying beyond replacing the fuel pump.  Paying for the fuel pump would be fair but no more.  I am not paying for all the diagnostics and whatever else they did.

When I got there, the woman at the desk tells me she’ll go get Rafi, “He wants to talk to you.”  When he came in, he shook my hand, gave me a nice smile, and said to me to come aside where I can talk to you in private.  Oh boy, I’m thinking he wants me away from the other customers. 

He says in his thick Israeli accent, “we never found the problem.  Your engine has no compression.” 

“But how can that be, I drove home before I gave it to you?” 

He says, waving his finger, “your car cannot be driven.” 

“So what do I owe you,” I asked. 

“Oh, you owe me nothing,” he said, speaking as if he acknowledged his inability to find the problem. 

“What???  But you put in a fuel pump.  I owe you at least that.” 

“You owe me nothing.  Consider it from God above.  We all live under the same God.” 

I was stunned.  My jaw was literally hanging open.  We then discussed having the car towed away the next week.  “That’s perfect,’ he says.  He shakes my hand again and says goodbye.

I could not believe it.  Generosity can come from all faiths.  What a good man.  (He still needs Gayle to run the place for him!)  Because of him, I upped my year end charitable donations by a thousand dollars.  I didn’t want to profit from that.  His generosity was convicting.  That was awesome.

 

Some pictures.  My old Toyota Corolla, sitting in Rafi’s parking lot.

 

 

Its final odometer reading.

 

A little short clip of the Corolla being towed away from Rafi’s shop.

 

I had a lot of good years with that car.  It served me well.

Finally a couple of pictures of my new Rav4.

 

 

 

I hope to get some great years out of this car.

There are so many blessings to count in this story.  There was the blessing of getting home from work in that rain with a flawed car.  I will never know exactly what went wrong.  There was the blessing of getting that Black Friday deal on Wednesday and driving the car home that afternoon.  No way would that car have still been there on Friday, and I would have had to fight the crowd.  And of course, there was the blessing of being relieved of the debt by Rafi, bless his soul.  And there is the blessing of being able to go to work on Monday.

I hope that was interesting.  Say a prayer for Rafi, and if you’re on Staten Island and in need of car work, go to Rafi’s Auto Repair.