Two new somewhat worrisome issues:

• The car is apparently starting in 2nd gear, which is contributing (obviously) to the sluggishness off-the-line. My mechanic has done a bunch of diagnostic fiddling, and thinks the issue will end up being a bad spring or brake band in the valve body. Not terrible, if that's what it is - hopefully it's nothing worse.

• The injection pump is apparently leaking oil badly. I'm probably just looking at a reseal, but it might be hard to find someone willing to do this (I suspect a diesel shop will try and upsell me into a rebuild), and I think it might be leaking too badly to make it the 300 miles to my house for me to attempt to DIY the repair - that is, if I even dare do so.

I guess we'll see how it goes - all part of the adventure, right?