A couple of days ago, Tara asked me to take the van in to get looked at. We've had a check engine light, a few days ago, the check oil light came on. (It was time for an oil change, anyway.) Tara found that the back left turn light was out. (Fast blinking on the dashboard. Genius.) For a little while, the car has had a bit of a problem at speeds over 50 MPH with a little bit of a shake. To top it all off, there was some sort of engine noise that bothered her, I didn't really hear it, but I don't really drive that vehicle all that much.
I took the van in yesterday. There is a shop right on the same block as my office, the guys there are really nice, seem very honest, I've never had a problem with them. (Ray's Campus American Car Care - Just off the West exit of campus.) They worked on it for a while, and called me to break the news to me. The shaking was because the tires are wearing on the inside of the tires. To be honest, the outside of the sidewalls of these tires don't look all that great, either. We've (meaning Tara, really) also had problems driving on these tires in the Winter. Anyhow, Ray also indicated that they had changed the oil, replaced the turn light, and were still tracing the engine light. The radiator had a crack in it, and needed to be replaced.
He actually talked to me about the options. Tara doesn't drive a lot on the freeway, he thought the tires might be ok a little bit longer (like until next month or something) if I wanted to replace the radiator first. He talked about getting the radiator done so that the engine didn't overheat and cause other damage. The code for the check engine light indicated a problem with the O2 sensors, but they kept testing them, and couldn't get them to fail. I guess check engine codes are just general suggestions of areas to check more than direct diagnostic data. I imagine that the idea is to get you to look all over the place on the car for five or six hours, then you get a message from thing like:
"Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over."
Anyway, I had them replace the radiator, they kept looking for the problem on the check engine light. At the end of the day, they decided to clear the light, and see if it came back. Tara and I went off yesterday evening in the van, running some errands. The check engine light came on after three miles of driving. We went to the grocery store, one of the things we picked picked up was a couple of quarts of oil for the truck. (It has a leak.)
On the way home from the store, about mile eleven of driving, the engine overheated. I parked the van, Tara walked the block or so home. After letting the thing cool a bit, I got the van home, but barely. All kinds of coolant was leaking out of the thing. Nice.
This morning, I put two quarts of oil in the truck so I could drive the kids to school in it. (The platoon system, two at a time, two trips.) Then I drove down to AutoZone, got some coolant, and tried putting some in the radiator. I poured a little in, it flowed through the radiator, and out the bottom. Nice.
I drove the truck to the mechanic, told Ray what happened, he went and got one of his guys, and sent him off with me to look at the van. It sounds like either a hose had a clamp that didn't fully get seated, or they missed a piece of styrofoam in the packaging, or something or the other, we got a gallon of coolant in the van, and it didn't leak out, so we tried driving the mile and a half to the shop. After a mile, the engine overheated, but it was mostly downhill at that point, we coasted in.
They worked on the van all day today, Tara used the truck to shuttle kids around. Kaylynn brought Lily and Ruth home after Lily's preschool. (Thanks Kay.) I had Lily at work for an hour, and Adam for a couple of hours, because there weren't enough seats in the truck to take care of business.
They reattached all the hoses on the radiator, filled it all the way back up, did a pressure test, and drove the things all over the foothills trying to get it to overheat. It didn't which is a good sign. They eventually found that the check engine light was from the catalytic converter, but they didn't have the equipment to replace those. The van doesn't have a lot of symptoms that would indicate a catalytic converter problem. (The truck does, but that's besides the point.) We need tires before it starts to snow, and a new catalytic converter before the next emissions test, I suppose. That's life owning a vehicle. We got a deal when we bought this thing, it's still a great deal compared to our options when we bought it.
What does all this have to do with my truck? The registration expires on the truck at the end of November. I don't think the thing will pass the safety inspection without repairs. It definitely needs a new wind shield. Tara thinks I should get it inspected anyway, if it's just a wind shield, I think she's willing to spring for it as my Christmas present for the year. (The only real expense past that is gas for the truck. Insurance is basically free on the thing.)
If it doesn't pass, I still like my demolition derby idea. I thought of another one today. I could dig a big hole in the front yard, bury the truck up past it's axles, making the bed flat with the yard. I'd then call it "yard art". No one would be able to miss our house after that. ("Turn on the street, then look for the house with the truck buried in the yard")
In the summer, I could move the BBQ grill out there onto the truck bed, add some tacky plastic furniture, sit back, drink a Diet Dr. Pepper, and relax...
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