We’ve been having trouble with a leaky windshield in our 2006 Jeep Commander for a few years now. Yes, you would think that would be an easy fix.

At first we tried to fix it ourselves. We’re pretty resourceful … generally … but resourcefulness is not always helpful in all situations. We thought the high pitched, extremely loud whistling noise was coming from the base of the windshield. So we ordered a new cowl and installed it. The old cowl was falling apart. It’s not something I look at often, so it’s condition sort of crept up on us.

It did not fix the whistle. And when I say that the noise was extremely loud, I mean it was so loud that we couldn’t really talk to each other and it made it hard to even think.

So we took it to our local auto shop and asked what they could do. Thing is, it only whistled over about 57 miles per hour depending on if we had a tail wind or a head wind. They took it for a test drive out on the highway and got it to make the noise. We were shocked, frankly, given our success in the past at getting auto repair people to actually hear the things we said we heard. Sometimes, the looks they would give us were not flattering.

They resealed a couple areas and it was good for a while. Then it started doing it again. But this time it was not nearly as loud or as high pitched. Thank goodness.

In the meantime, we’d had the Jeep in the shop again because the brakes were making a lot of noise. And I mean a lot. It was so loud that heads would turn.

Now we are not generally irrational people. I’ll admit that there are occasions when I can border on the irrational. Nor are we prone to auditory illusions. They could not get the car to make the noises we had described … or any other odd noises for that matter. But they checked it over really well and did find that the front disc brakes were about shot. The struts needed replacing and it needed an alignment.

We got that all done and it rides and handles so much better now. But we still had the whistling windshield to deal with.

Bernd found an auto glass shop within walking distance of home. In our small city, a lot of things are within walking distance of home including our auto shop. He made an appointment for me to drop off the Jeep. They were going to try sealing it first and then, if necessary, they would replace the windshield.

I did not leave the Jeep.

This auto glass shop is a weird place. But then so many businesses where we live are on the odd side of things. The office is not up front. The waiting room is the first thing you come to. There was an old guy sitting in a chair looking at a TV mounted to the wall. He was slouching and appeared to be half asleep. I pulled my head out of the doorway and headed down the long hallway.

There was a big sign on the left wall that said “OFFICE” and an arrow pointing down the hall. There was a window on the right with an older woman in the office. I announced who I was and she took the key and went to find someone. Turned out it was the guy that had been watching TV in the waiting room. And he came quietly up behind me. I’m not sure how, because he didn’t walk down the hallway toward me. And you wouldn’t think anyone as old and heavy set as he was could move so silently. I’d have been startled except that it takes a lot to startle me. Really. Not sure why that is. Maybe it’s because by the time you reach 71 years of age nothing much surprises you anymore.

The woman was florid faced. The kind you associate with heavy booze consumption and her nose kind of looked like W. C. Fields’ nose. Her eyes were tiny and surround by fat even though she was only moderately overweight. But they worked well enough because she wasn’t wearing glasses and she didn’t squint at the computer monitor. Of course, she might have been wearing contacts. I’ve no way of knowing that.

The old guy was grizzled and grey-haired, wearing suspenders and really baggy pants that hung really low despite the suspenders. I was glad for the suspenders. Any lower and those pants would have been on the floor with the first step he took.

He asked me about the whistle and I told him a bit about it in a normal volume of voice and he said “Eh?” So I repeated myself louder and then he said he’d take it for a test drive. I wondered if he would be able to hear the whistle.

We were standing in front of the Jeep when a young guy wearing patchouli appeared seemingly out of nowhere at my left elbow, smiled at me, and got in the car with him.

The young guy was tall and you would say he was average weight if we were living in era older than our current one. He wore a t-shirt with the company name on it and blue jeans and a ball cap turned the right way around. The bill of the cap had been rounded the way they always used to and was not worn flat the way young people today seem to favor.

They left the windows up so they could hear the whistle and when I got in the car to come home, it stank of patchouli inside. Patchouli is one of the few natural fragrances that give me trouble. And it can be a lot of trouble sometimes.

Anyway, they couldn’t get it to whistle. Big surprise. Not. Don’t know what I was expecting.

They took it out on the highway and got it up to 80mph and said all they heard was the usual road noise. I said, “Well shit” when they told me. They were both very nice and explained all the ways the young guy had contorted himself  trying to get his head in different places to try to hear the noise. I just stood there shaking my head. Might have been an eye roll or two in there as well.

I got an estimate for replacing the windshield out of pocket. It was looking more and more like that was going to be our only recourse. The young guy said that once they have the windshield out, they’ll inspect the whole thing and see if there is some problem other than the seal. But I can’t imagine what that might be.

It was all kind of a bust. But I met some definitely interesting people.

Because of the patchouli, which also mightily bothers my husband, we will be looking for a different auto glass establishment so I can go through the whole thing over again.

Ain’t life grand.

Photo and quote courtesy of 2060 Auto Parts and Pinterest respectively.