Safety Fork, the

Rudolf is on vacation for the weekend. I took him to the shop in the morning because the check engine light was on, and cold starts seemed rougher than they should be. My suspicion was right: after waiting about an hour for them to investigate, the mechanic found me and told me that they’d replaced the glow plug in cylinder 1. Then he told me that after they started up the engine, the tip of the new plug broke off in the cylinder, that they’d have to take off the cylinder head to find and remove the wayward heating element. I’m glad this is under warranty; it’s the sort of work that would otherwise rack up an awful lot of labor charges.

In the meantime, I’ve been given a substitute Beetle, which is actually newer and fancier than mine; it has leather seats, although it’s not really sufficiently manual or diesel-powered for my tastes.