I had to go get my oil changed yesterday
Go me!
Seriously. One bad experience makes you dread the next time.
I was 6000 miles overdue for that oil change.
I tend to put off things at places where I have been traumatized in some way.
Lets not discuss how long I go between dental visits.
I also had them look at – guess what?
The engine light! Which is still coming on at random just like last time.
And just like last time it was the gas cap.
Only here is the odd (and no doubt expensive) twist.
The engine light? It doesn’t come on right after I replace the gas cap, or even later that day, but up to 4 DAYS later. I haven’t touched the gas cap in that time.
Probably my neighbors are not sneaking over after midnight & syphoning my gas on a regular basis (though considering the price of gas ‘probably’ is as certain as I can get)
It comes on while I am driving on perfectly flat paved roads. It comes on when I am driving on bumpy dirt roads. It comes on while I am idling in the parking lot waiting for the audiobook I am listening to too get to the end of a chapter.
It’s random & cannot be reproduced.
My years of tech support tell me it is one of two things –
A) something internal & expensive is not attached as well as it should be
B) the user is a crazy, whiny complainer and probably lying and/or exaggerating about it in an attempt to get it all replaced
Since I am the user, I’ll go with option A.
I am fairly sure I am not lying and/or exaggerating.
Crazy, whiny complainer I’ll give you.
It lit up again while I was driving home & I wanted to turn around & go back to the mechanic and say “SEE!” because I’m starting to think they don’t believe me.
I was in and out of the repair place in an hour, which has got to be some sort of record. I have a worksheet detailing what they did & what recommendations they have. Someone with very bad handwriting wrote those recommendations. It says
squiggle squiggle ‘front tire’ squiggle ‘depth’ several more squiggles and what looks like ‘slaggart retantion BAH”
I think they want me to have my tires rotated next time. I’m guessing that because the colorful check sheet they gave me has the yellow boxes checked for tires (as opposed to green or red). Everything else is green.
DH thinks “BAH” in not mocking me, but is actually FEA, or front end alignment
They told me they could run some sort of diagnostic thing for the engine light & jargon jargon wiring jargon replacement motherboard jargon order something jargon jargon. $150 and up.
Then they said if it was the actual engine, the light would flash instead of being steady.
So I said ‘I’ll live with it for now’
Sooner or later some other issue will force my hand on the hourly labor charges and I’ll have them look at it then.
