Taxi Trek Day 1: The 8-Hour Drive That Took 15 Hours

I’m here in New Rochelle, NY – which happens to be the city where I spent the first two years of my life and yet, somehow, there’s not a plaque about that to be found anywhere – and boy am I exhausted. The drive from Chapel Hill, NC to the New York City area was only supposed to take like eight, eight and half hours or so, and yet I found myself rolling into town, what, 15 hours later? How did this happen?

You know what, though? I think I’m just going to be happy I was able to roll into town at all, considering everything about this 375,000-mile taxi. It made it! That’s a victory, a colossal victory over every rational impulse and thought I had about this steaming yellow heap when I first saw it. I get the feeling that this taxi is still very much an old-school New Yorker at heart, determined and unflappable, continuing to drive when by all rights it should have been freed of this mortal ignition coil long ago. It’s keeping going seemingly out of spite, and I respect that.

[Ed note:It was such a crazy delight to see Jason and Otto show up last night. It was also incredible to see hardcore fans still show up at the Taxi Depot last night. My favorite thing about this story is that, by buying a car that probably shouldn’t have had a second life, we’re able to do this incredible and unlikely journey. There’s a huge amount of freedom in an $800 taxi bought on Copart. – MH]

The day started on kind of a worrying note; my half – perhaps even quarter – assed fix to the air conditioning failed almost immediately, because of course it did. I rigged it up using alligator clips with wires designed to carry the cumulative energy of a good belch, not 14 volts from a car alternator , in a hot engine bay environment. Of course they failed.

That’s also when I realized just how much I didn’t want the A/C to fail; despite my insistence that I’m not someone who needs a lot of automotive comfort, it’s hot and humid and miserable out here, and this NV200 taxi is not a car designed to not have air conditioning, really. It’s not like a Citroën 2CV with a top that rolls open like a sardine can and all sorts of vent flaps – it’s a product of a climate-controlled era. The back is especially bad, basically a sealed box with two little tiny rectangular windows, and that’s it for outside ventilation. And my kid was back there!

In additon to the need for A/C dawning on me, I also felt some strange hesitation and missing while accelerating, a stuttering, pulsating effect that isn’t really something one associates with cars that, you know, want to be driven across country. The dash of the taxi was lit up like Las Vegas with pretty much every warning light on, but years of intensive shitbox driving have given me a preturnatural ability to ignore things like that.

Still, that check engine light did start to flash, and that’s when I remembered I forgot my OBD reader on my workbench. Happily, a different, better kind of reader – an Autopian reader named Jay – emailed me and told me he may have an OBD reader, or know where I can get one, so he met me in front of an auto parts store.

I ended up just buying a reader, and got these two codes:

P2081 and P0546, both of which had to do with the Exhaust Gas Temperature sensor. Could that be causing my hesitation and missing, somehow? I’m not sure, and I wasn’t really ready to deal with that, so I worked on what felt much, much more important: getting the damn A/C to work. It’s hot as hell and humid as heaven out here.

Oh, and by the way, the shape of that reader sure looked like it could have been some kind of novelty Batman-shaped tamagotchi or something:

My janky-ass fix yesterday to run 12V right to the A/C compressor clutch did work, but the miserable little wires I was using, unsurprisingly, did not last. Yes, they melted, and no, I can’t say I’m really surprised. So, I got real automotive-grade wire, an inline fuse, and a little switch, and sloppily re-wired it all, but with better wire and an actual fuse!

The switch is because I was told I shouldn’t leave the compressor clutch engaged all the time, and there was already a convenient hole on the hood where the taxi medallion used to reside, so I just shoved the switch in there, and I think a random toggle switch on a car’s hood lends a certain rakish charm to things:

Jay gave Otto and I some cold beverages and was a real supportive pal, so thank you, Jay!

Otto and I set off into the world again, leaving Richmond and heading into DC, happily with air conditioning! Well, for now.

Before we got on the highway, a very peculiar Volkswagen Thing caught my eye:

What the hell was going on here, with that framework setup? A second story? I’ll have to revisit this later.

We got on the road, and then hit some absurd traffic around DC, which wasn’t too unexpected, but was made vastly worse because the A/C stopped working again. It was absolute torture, creeping along at 5 mph in the sweltering heat, time slipping away just like all my body’s fluids, via sweat that formed a waterfall down my spine.

Otto was a good sport about it, but I know he was sweltering back there, too. Oh, and it was also raining, which made me realize that my wiper blades were hot garbage, which I didn’t think to check because, remember, I’m an idiot.

Finally, finally, finally, we made it out of traffic, and I could get to an exit where we could eat and I could assess the A/C situation. Unsurprisingly, one of the wires got loose and rubbed against a spinning something, severing it. To really fix it, I’d have to roll under the car. But the ground was full of filthy puddles and I was already hot and miserable, so I thought, screw it, and fixed it like this:

Yes, the wire runs from where I could grab it under the car, then outside, over the bumper, and back in. I stand by this fix! Under the hood is full of hot, oily, sharp, spinny things! Outside the hood is the whole beautiful world! With sun and wombats and beautiful people! More importantly, the A/C worked again.

I even made improvements to the vent system up front, which had lost its directional vanes long ago. This top 1/3rd of a water bottle made a fine directed jet of sweet, sweet conditioned air.

On we drove. I saw someone who I thought was so into themselves they needed a whole truck for their ego:

…but then I saw it was their super ego, so they must be really freaking moral.

We went by our Nation’s strategic reserves of what I assume is puréed crabmeat:

And we blasted through tiled tunnels, like long, glorious bathrooms:

Over bridges the little taxi went on, mostly fine at speed, stuttering a bit under harder throttle:

I also saw this guy, who I guess had a lot of ladders:

That’s what, ten, a dozen ladders? And a wheelbarrow? I mean, it’s cool, I just can’t help but think I’d like to have seen more ladders.

Eventually, we did make it to New Rochelle to meet up with Mat and Griffin, and I, exhausted, fell asleep. Otto seems in good spirits overall, too.

Oh, if you’re curious how much it costs to drive in a NYC taxi from Chapel Hill to New Rochelle, check this out:

It rolls over at $999.99 so I had to add the thousands digit: $2,780.50, not counting tip. Taxis may not be the economic choice for long-distance travelers, I’m realizing.

I wonder if Otto is good for it? He better be.