If you missed the beginning of why each novel features a “Jag Jab”, you can read it here.

To continue my Jag saga…

To recap, I’ve picked up my car and am now driving back home through the massive thoroughfares in an unfamiliar Toronto. The ABS light has just come on and I’m not happy, but I can’t turn around because I have no idea where any of the turn offs will take me—I have no GPS or smartphone to help me here.

But this was just the beginning of my problems.

At about the 45 minute mark I finally get to a point of the city I’m slightly familiar with, and the road is no longer a dozen lanes, it’s a mere half dozen, the overpasses now becoming butterfly exchanges. I put my signal light on and pull off the highway, coming safely to a stop in a parking lot. I call the dealer and tell them about the ABS light. I want to bring the car back but they’re closing in less than twenty minutes, which means I’d have to overnight in Toronto.

They had me.

And my love affair with Jaguar is beginning to wane.

“Take it to your local Jag dealer and we’ll cover everything, don’t worry.”

“Fine.”

Red flags should have gone off when they said they’d pay for the repair. Didn’t I have a warranty?

I start the car up and as I’m accelerating down the on ramp, the engine begins to shudder, dash lights come on, and I suddenly have no power.

I coast off to the side of the road and call the dealer again.

“Oh, it’s probably just a loose gas cap.”

Turns out that was BS, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I take off the gas cap and replace it, tightening it as hard as I can. I start the car and the dash is clear.

Maybe they were right, I was thinking, but as you already know, they weren’t. Now keep in mind, this was an actual Jag dealer, not Luigi’s Spaghetti and Used Car Ristorante, so I was trusting these people to have not sold me a lemon, and to back their warranty. Having dealt with reputable Ford and Mercedes dealerships up to this point of my life, it never occurred to me that a massive luxury dealership like this shouldn’t deserve my trust.

So when a yellow engine light came on about fifteen minutes later but the engine kept running fine, I had no choice but to continue on since the Jag dealer was now closed and I was out of Toronto with no idea where any hotel was regardless.

I made it all the way home, a nearly five hour journey since I was babying the engine as best I could.

Little did I know my safe arrival home didn’t mean the car wasn’t through with trying to kill me yet.

To be continued…