Ruby, our ’97 Chevy Blazer, with our tent trailer Tahiti in tow, was parked alongside the pool at the El Rancho Motel in Boulder City, Nevada. She wouldn’t start. It was Friday morning. (See www.CarquinezReview.com for previous installments.)

My wife had gone to ask about the nearest Chevy dealer. I tried to resuscitate Ruby, and finally her heart began to flutter, one cylinder firing and then another. My wife came back and said the nearest dealer was Henderson Chevrolet, just outside Las Vegas. I pumped the accelerator; Ruby struggled. My wife added that one of the guests offered to follow us in her car.

Really? I said, finding the considerate offer at odds with my dislike for Las Vegas, with its endless strip malls, garish neon, insufferable heat, ubiquitous slot machines, emotionless dealers, and comatose gamblers, mechanically winning and losing money in smoke-filled casinos. We were there because we wanted to camp at Lake Mead on our way to the Grand Canyon. It’s okay, I said. I think Ruby can make it.

Limping out of the parking lot and onto the expressway, the Las Vegas valley, covered in thick brown smog, lay before us. It would be another windless, sweltering day. I turned on the radio, searching for traffic news. The weatherman reported that the iniquitous city’s weather would again be beautiful.

At Henderson Chevrolet, the service rep connected his computer to Ruby. While other service reps had talked of service codes, saying that they meant Ruby’s injectors were dirty or bad, this was the first time I had actually seen someone use the hand-held device. He told me how many times Ruby’s heart had skipped. He used his computer to test Ruby’s health. Is it injectors? I asked. It might be more complicated, he said. I shook my head in obvious agreement.

Unfortunately, he said, his service team was booked for today, and, though they would normally be open on Saturday, they were closed tomorrow for inventory.

Team? I asked.

He explained that a team of car specialists serviced vehicles, ensuring that the right person worked on the problem. He suggested we try their Las Vegas dealership.

Deeper into Sin City Ruby went, to Fairway Chevrolet, where we were met by an affable older man who listened patiently as we recounted our ordeals. Is he a car therapist? I wondered.

He found us a service rep who said that they could work on Ruby in the morning. But, he said, their best drivability mechanic, the person who needed to diagnose Ruby’s illness, wouldn’t be working. Since Blazers and Jimmys are only cosmetically different, he said, we ought to check with Pat Clark GMC.

Impressed with the professionalism we had encountered but resigned to spending the weekend in Las Vegas, we drove to a third dealer as lunch time quickly approached. We were greeted by Jack Ghan. He listened to our sad story, which had become a melodrama played by my wife, me, Ruby and a cohort of evil mechanics: service papers were our props; anguish, injustice and incompetence informed our plot.

Jack stopped us before our final act, saying that we needed to talk to his best drivability mechanic, Frank Ewbank, who was just finishing a job. Talk directly to the mechanic? I said, amazed at the prospect.

Frank listened intently, shaking his head, saying that such shoddy service would never be tolerated at Pat Clark. He was smiling. There was a sparkle in his eyes. I’ve worked for GM for twenty-some years, he said. I’ve never worked on a car I couldn’t fix. Turning his head aside, he added with a chuckle, but sometimes it takes me a few days to get it right.

Within an hour, Frank eagerly pulled me out of the service waiting room to demonstrate how the wiring harness had been damaged from repeated servicing. He wiggled the harness; Ruby’s heart skipped.

After more than two hours of work, for which there was no charge, Frank and Jack saying that we had already suffered enough, we were headed back to Lake Mead. I was so confident that our problems were behind us that I was driving Ruby and Tahiti in the middle lane, surrounded by heavy expressway traffic, when Ruby’s heart stopped dead.

I pulled the hazard switch up. It came out of the steering column in my hand. You’re kidding! I yelled, thinking of GM’s safety warranty, as I looked around, panic seizing me. I pressed down on the break pedal harder and harder. Nothing. I pulled on the steering wheel and bore down with my foot as hard as I could. We weren’t slowing down.