It turns out the car hasn't been maintained, apparently, in quite a while. Now, it's a good, reliable car, even if it was made in Canada (another interesting Car Fact I discovered when I eventually, on Thursday, got the car in question back). The mechanic did all the standard replacing spark plugs, fiddling bits, draining assorted vital fluids, checking how much cruft was in them per unit fluid, and putting back in fresh vital fluids. He also discovered several notable things of which I was not previously aware, such as the fact that the front brakes had gone to the great scrap iron shop in the sky, a problem he was more than happy to correct. Also, the radiator had, at some point in the past, suffered a catastrophic leak and had been repaired with the simple expedient of plugging up the leak. "I put some more sealant on it," he added, helpfully. Also, the oil pan leaks very slightly, but that describes at least 80 percent of the vehicles currently on the road. Also, there was, indeed, a flaw in the wiring system, which he confirmed by sticking a fresh component in to replace the one which had burned out, watching the new one burn out, and then cursing cruel fate. Electrical problems in a Buick are generally in the repair category known as "a cast-iron bitch to fix", and require rooting around in small spaces feeling for melted wires.
Also, all four tires are in a state which can best be described as "my god, you still have traction with these things?" and thus required replacing. I was sort of aware of this, but wasn't aware that it was quite that bad. It was, though. Gadzooks.
The total edged up over nine hundred dollars for maintenance and repairs and replacements and labor and all that. Gads.
On the other hand, this is substantially less than the cost of, say, suddenly discovering a distinct lack of any brakes at all, or of losing any semblance of traction on a wet road. So I don't consider this to violate my essential lucky bastard nature. In fact, it simply makes me more smug. After all, I am also a lazy bastard, and while I would have gotten around to taking the car in to be poked at eventually, it was probably best that I be forced to do it by a debilitating but non fatal car error.
Plus, I have an IT salary. Might as well spend it on something. It's certainly money well spent, as the car's performance (which was perfectly good before) has noticably improved.
Of course, now I get to live in dread of a radiator breach, but better to know than to be surprised by it, I guess.
The mechanic was a living southern stereotype of a hard-workin', hard-smokin' American. The kind of surly fellow who writes things like "Mechanic advises you to GET A NEW CAR" on work tickets (not MINE, of course, but he says it like it's a common thing). The kind of fellow who puts tobacco industry executives' kids through college. We had a deep and insightful conversation in which it was discovered that everyone's always over-worked and given stupid, goofy tasks by management (his particular beef was coupons, which he views as the bane of his existance, as the people who bring them in always tend to have cars which are just shy of literally dissolving away into a pile of rusted debris). Well, okay, we always knew that, but it was still entertaining.
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