The Rumbler

Our Mazda Protoge with 126,000 miles has been an excellent car. It is dependable, easy to maintain, and great on gas mileage. The only problem is the exhaust line. It must be made of tin foil. I've had it repaired or patched 3 or 4 times plus a muffler since we've had it. The muffler was a little pricey, but the patches have run around $50. Not bad compared to the $300 it would cost to redo the exhaust line.

A broken exhaust line is a cosmetic problem. It doesn't affect transmission or handling. But it is loud-annoyingly loud. It's wake up the neighbors and draw stares from other motorists loud. This morning I drove it for the first time since last Wednesday when it broke open again (actually this time the line seperated from the engine). I started it up to warm before I took the kids to daycare. Backing it half-way out of the garage, I thought I had it far enough out to vent the exhaust. When I came out to load up the car the garage was like a Hennepin County bar before the smoking ban.

Worse is, again, the noise. As you accelerate you can feel the reverberation through your body. The sound is worse in the lower gears when the car is lathering up to a higher speed. The cabin of the car is like the inside of a rock tumbler for the JC Penney's Christmas catalog. I imagine it's something like the early astronauts as the re-entered Earth in their space capsules.

Once you hit 4th and 5th gear it's not bad. As you let off the gas the car quiets almost to normal. But if you hit an incline you slowly start to lose speed. The choice is this: hit the gas now and keep the pace or let inertia carry you over the hill at the risk of annoying following motorists- I choose the latter.

The car is fixed now. Eddie did a fine job for $49.57. Small, new piece of pipe added and welded together to make it sound, er fixed.

I will miss one thing though. When passing pedistrians I did enjoy hitting the gas as I passed them. It was a guilty pleasure to watch them startle like they were being woke up from a nap by the Landlady from Kingpin. Oh well, I'm sure I'll get a chance to do it again before too long.