Car care

For a while now, our "check engine" light has been going on at irregular intervals. When it started it was diagnosed as a faulty oxygen sensor, and not worth worrying about unless it became constant. But as of a couple days ago it had been on for almost a week, and I noticed that the resting temperature was much higher than usual... yet the heat wasn't working. So I brought it in this morning to be examined. Diagnosis was that it needed a water pump, which they replaced. Quite reasonable; I don't think I'd ever replaced it, these things do go after a while. But we didn't really need the added expense right now. (Nothing on a car is cheap.) On the other hand, not fixing it would have been a lot worse. And I have my car back, and it's healthy. So on the whole it's probably not a bad thing... I just hope it doesn't need any more major repairs for a while.