You know, I am almost ashamed to tell this auto repair story, but since I talk about other dumb things that goes on in life, it’s only fitting I include my auto repair story here too.
For the first time in 7 years I washed the engine of my Ford explorer. I have to say it looked quite nice after the washing I gave it. I was concerned that the water could cause some electrical malfunction, but what the heck, I’m a few blocks from home so lets go for it.
When all was said and done the engine looked good and the car ran fine.
The following day I went to the park, at my usual time of 7am, to let our dogs run for a while. It was particularly hot that day and wouldn’t you know it, I opened the door, turned the key and heard click, click, click. Dam, sounds like a dead battery.
The dogs tongues were hanging out to their maximum length due to the heat and there were only a few people at the park. I was very fortunate that one of the few people left at the park was a lady I know. She was kind enough to drive myself and the two dogs back home where the dogs immediately passed out. Our kind neighbor assisted me back to the park to try and jump my truck.
Round Two
We hooked up the cables, I put in the key, turned it and everything went dead. Not even a click, click. Now my thoughts went back to the day before, when I washed the engine for the first time in seven years. I was thinking there must be a delayed reaction and I really screwed things up in the electrical system.
I looked at the cables, they looked clean. I wiggled a few wires and that had no effect on anything. My neighbor was nice enough to drive me over to the local auto parts shop to buy a new battery. We hooked that up, the interior lights came on and I thought we were in business, I turned the key, not even a click, everything went dead again.
It was now high noon, the temperature was 110, I needed a new plan.
Round Three
I called my son, who knows a little about electrical systems, and he came over to take a look. To make it short, we checked all the fuses, we pounded on the starter (suggested by someone) and we were in the 110 heat from 1pm to about 4pm. My concern now was getting the truck out of the park before it closed.
Round Four
I found a reasonable towing service that finally got us out of there and back to the house around 6pm.
A neighbor, who is a auto repair mechanic, heard the tow truck and came out to assist.
He took a quick look and speculated that the ignition switch was shorting out. I’d had enough for one day, he agreed to dig deeper in the morning.
It’s hard to sleep with something like this because you are thinking how dumb you are, if you only left well enough alone and didn’t clean the engine. With electrical problems in a car, the expense to fix it can be in the thousands, have a good night sleep dummy.
Final Round
In the morning my mechanic neighbor came over with his meters and started to check the starter system. Every time he would check something he said “that’s strange”. These words are not comforting when you are talking about an autos electrical system.
This went on for about an hour, he went from the ignition switch, then the starter, then the fuse box. Still baffled he wiggled the battery cable wires again and the interior lights came on. I turned the key, all went dead, again.
OK, lets end this. Just on a lark he disconnected the negative battery cable, removed the cable from the clamp and saw some corrosion. He did a quick brush of the 1 inch cable wire and then reconnected it to the clamp. I turned the key, expecting no better than before, and wouldn’t you know it, the truck started up like a champ.
This same thing happened 5 years ago and the AAA driver knew immediately what was wrong. You know, I briefly thought of this at the beginning of this event, and for some dumb reason I dismissed it and went right into the complicated mode. It was a 5 minute fix that turned into a day and a half headache.
Look for the simple fixes first, what a dumb life. It was just a coincidence that washing the engine coincided with corroded battery cables.
If I would have taken it to a auto repair center, who knows how much they would have charged me. We need to be careful, there are a lot of scams out there. Knowing what to look for is half the battle.
I came across a little book called auto repair scams revealed. If you end up taking your car in for repairs, be prepared. I will never forget the first thing to check next time my battery goes bye-bye.
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