LIFE BY LOUIS: Vintage cars and their never-ending problems

I have never trusted that jump-starting process. I find it a dangerous activity. ILLUSTRATION | IGAH

What you need to know:

  • Every night, he strategically parks his vintage pickup on a slope.
  • This is to ensure that if the pickup refuses to start, which is more often than not, he can always tug it gently down the slope and he starts it as it rolls.
  • When Baba Shanice doesn't get the slope parking, we all know that we must participate in resurrecting his car in the morning.

Even though weekends are meant to be my resting days and time for domestic affairs, it seems that is no longer the case; thanks to my neighbour on the eighth floor.

Baba Shanice prides himself on owning a vintage Chevrolet pickup that he claims to have inherited from his grandfather, although we all know that he bought it late last year using a sacco loan.

He forgets that he walked to every house looking for guarantors for the loan. It was an uphill task for him because we all know his love for the bottle and we felt that the chances of him converting the loan into a tipple were very high.

NO SLEEP

I don’t have a problem with buying a car using whatever means, so long as you don’t wake me from my sleep when the same vintage refuses to start in the morning.

He is a clever man and he understands his problem more than anyone else.

So every night when he comes back late from his business station at Kariokor roundabout where he operates from, he strategically parks the pickup on a slope.

This is to ensure that if the pickup refuses to start, which is more often than not, he can always tug it gently down the slope and he starts it as it rolls. We call it starting the car with gears or ‘scaring’ the car.

Sometimes when he checks in at around 4am when the estate roosters have crowed themselves hoarse, he finds his parking slot taken. Baba Nathan, who operates a similarly old Ford Cortina that suffers from the same engine terminal illnesses, uses the slope parking for the same purpose.

JUMP-START

When Baba Shanice doesn’t get the slope parking, we all know that we must participate in resurrecting his car in the morning.

So just when I am trying to wind up my morning dream that involves finishing big apartment blocks in Upper Hill, I hear a knock on my door.

“Baba Brian, please help me with your jumpers,” he says even without the decency of wishing me a good morning.

Good manners require that I accompany him to the parking lot and just like a good Kenyan I take selfies as he struggles to jump-start the car.

I have never trusted that jump-starting process. I find it a dangerous activity, second to walking along the city streets with your phone exposed.

He starts by connecting the cables to his battery. He then instructs me to do the same from my car’s end. The tragedy is that I have to be physically present for this nerve-racking activity.

He then instructs me to start my engine first. After confirming that all the cables are secure, he then starts his engine.

NO SOLUTION

Normally, it will cough painfully and dangerous sparks will emanate from the hood as his engine reluctantly comes back to life.

There is no magical solution to his car’s problems, and sometimes the car will still refuse to start. In this case he has to summon half the estate residents to help him push the car to the slope from where he can do his magic – ‘scare’ the engine to life.

The car has no immunity against any engine disease. One day after pushing the car around the estate five times, the engine still did not start. We had woken up the entire estate, including the ward MCA.

After a thorough diagnosis by someone who understands vintage cars, it was discovered that the car did not have fuel. The car drinks fuel from a jerrycan placed beneath the passenger seat, and he must have forgotten to check the level the previous night.

We all went home feeling cheated, but we still continue offering our services because our cars are also getting old and may soon suffer the same predicament.

While we are all working out our biceps and leg calves pushing Baba Shanice’s car, his wife is usually seated in the front seat either on her phone placing orders for her exhibition shop, or adding another layer of make-up. We have complained against this many times, but it yet to be resolved.

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