On January 2, 2026, my wife, Janet, and I left our home in San Jose, California about 9 a.m. to meet Janet’s sister, Gail Johnston and our brother-in-law, Lane Johnston. We spend about a week together during January or February every year at their timeshare in Pacific Grove. They flew down to Monterey Airport. We were supposed to pick them up at their hotel at 11 a.m. to take them to the timeshare.
Janet and I usually drive our Subaru Solterra EV around town. It has a driving range of about 220 miles on a charge. To be careful, we drove our 2014 Toyota Camry hybrid, with a driving range of about 450 miles on a full tank of gas. The Camry has been a very reliable car and had about 124,000 miles on the odometer.
Our route to Pacific Grove took us over Highway 17 in the Santa Cruz mountains. Suddenly, our car started running extremely rough, and the “engine” light turned on. We got “over the hill” and started driving on Highway 1. The car was running even worse, so we looked for an exit at Aptos where we could check the car and decide what to do next.
We stopped at a Safeway gas station. The oil was recently changed, and I checked it anyway. It was clean. We looked online and in the owner’s manual about what to do next, and decided to find a local mechanic.
I told the gas station attendant about our trouble and asked if she could recommend a local mechanic. She said to turn right at the next corner, and Aptos Tire and Auto Care was a couple of miles down the road. A few minutes later at about 9:30 a.m., our car limped into the driveway of Aptos Tire and Auto Care.
The gentleman behind the counter, who I believe was the owner, Luis Contiero, told us his shop was fully booked. Nobody could look at our car for at least three hours. He said they had a $20,000 diagnostic machine to determine what the problem was.
Our hearts sank. Janet sent a text to Gail that we couldn’t make it by 11 a.m. Gail said they would hire an Uber to get to the timeshare.
When I walked to the parking lot to get a book to read from my car, I found our car was already in the garage and connected to the diagnostic machine.
There was a sign in the reception room, “Restrooms for our employees only.” Janet asked if she could use the restroom and the person at the counter, said, “Sure!”
Shortly, they said the problem was probably a bad spark plug. They probably couldn’t get spark plugs for the car until 12:30 p.m.
About 10:30 a.m., they suggested that we go to the New Leaf grocery store, located nearby, that has an excellent delicatessen. We waited until about 11:30 a.m. to go the New Leaf and had a nice lunch and used the restrooms.
We returned to Aptos Tire & Auto Care about 12:30 p.m. In about five minutes, they told us our car was ready and we were on our way. Our car ran smoothly for the rest of our ride to Pacific Grove and has continued to run reliably.
We left about the time they originally said they would start to look at the car.
We were so relieved we didn’t have to spend the night in Aptos and wait for our car to be repaired, and grateful Luis Contiero and his employees at Aptos Tire and Auto Care had sympathy for a senior couple who were in a tough spot.
An incident that could have spoiled our vacation was only a minor inconvenience.