If your car regularly makes a squealing noise every time it starts don’t assume it’s just an “older car thing.” It’s not.
Yesterday our car Angmar peed coolant all over the pavement. Was it a leak? We drove straight to Canadian Tire to investigate {or rather, have them investigate}. Before we went in Adam popped the hood and took a quick look. Nope, not a leak…our coolant had boiled over. Not good.
The helpful Canadian Tire mechanic took a look, told us it could be any number of things, told us to come back first thing in the morning and he’d take care of us. He filled our now-empty coolant reservoir with water. He also warned us to pull over and let Angmar cool down if the engine heat indicator thingy* went into the red zone. We didn’t make it out of the parking lot before the needled hit red. We parked. We waited. We tried again. We didn’t make it a third of the way home before we could hear a terrible boiling sound. The needle had enthusiastically climbed back into the red and settled for the long haul. We pulled into the mall parking lot, parked, and caught a bus home.
This morning Adam caught an early bus so he could get back to the mall so he could attempt to drive Angmar back to Canadian tire.
No word yet on if he made it.

UPDATE: Here's the e-mail I got from Adam.

Everything is fixed up.  Turns out it wasn't the pump (so the squeaky noise is probably just a belt), it was the thermostat.  They replaced the thermostat, did an oil change, and we needed a new air filter.  Everything came to $230.
They checked for an oil leak to see why the oil was all gone, but didn't find any leaks.  Turns out Wal-Mart is just stupid and doesn't know how to do oil changes on Hyundai cars.  Apparently you have to fill up the oil, turn the car on for about a minute, turn it off then fill it back up because the car has to run to pull it in.  That's why last time we got an oil change they told us it was totally empty, because the time before had been from Wal-Mart also.

Anyway, the housing for the thermostat had warped from the heat, and he had to grind it back into a shape that would fit on, but he didn't charge us for that.

Also, we need to switch out the winter tires.  I forgot to ask how much that will cost.

*That’s the technical term us mechanically minded folks use.