I’m really looking forward to bed. It’s midnight:11 over here. I’ve busted my little hiney all week. Little sleep, long work days. Been pretty crazy, and I’m exhausted. I might actually sleep in a little bit tomorrow… Get a full night’s sleep. Been a while.
I did seven more cars today. Probably tied a personal record maybe? Or close to it.
The first one was a 2004 Chevy Impala that he wanted me to put a starter in. He told me he didn’t want to diagnose this, so I went ahead and put the starter in for him, and guess what?
Yep, the starter wasn’t the problem.
People try to save money cutting corners, but so often they end up spending more than if they would just bite the bullet in the first place and have a proper diagnosis done.
Second job was a battery replacement.
Third job, another bad self-diagnosis. Their car was overheating so they replaced the thermostat. It kept overheating, so they started to do the water pump themselves, only to find out it wasn’t the water pump, once I got done finishing the job they had already started. After finishing the job for them, I realized the radiator was cracked and squirting coolant out. That was probably their issue the whole time.
Cost my first customer hundreds of dollars in his incorrect guesss. Cost my third customer over $400 in her incorrect guess.
Hopefully, they are learning.
Fourth job was a no start. I had replaced an alternator for them probably a month or two ago, and this time their battery was completely shot. Leaking battery acid out the sides, etc. They weren’t able to figure out which phone number they used for the warranty on the battery, so they were going to need to spend another $200 to get a battery, but I called the commercial manager at my home autozone, and they were willing to put the battery on my account and then refund it, allowing the customer to get a free battery. That’s a pretty big deal, and I’m grateful they were willing to do that and grateful I have the connections to be able to have things like that happen.
Fifth job was a charging issue on a Toyota tacoma. Don’t work on tacomas very much. They must be pretty bulletproof trucks. Would love to have one myself. He ran it completely out of oil at 150,000 miles, so bad that it made a nasty engine racket, like the engine was going to blow. He decided to just go ahead and drive it until it blew, and it made an awful sound for about 10,000 miles. 😶 And now 150,000 miles later, he’s got over 300,000 miles on the truck.
That’s Toyota for you.
Sixth car was back to that girl that asked me out a month or two ago. I didn’t realize it until I got there who it was exactly. She had a little chirping sound in the engine when accelerating. Probably either a belt or a pulley, and her belt was really old, so I went ahead and replaced the belt and let her know that if it keeps chirping, it’s almost certainly the pulley, but it’s not a big deal.
Last car was a 2010 Mazda 6 that just needed a battery.
Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. Tomorrow will not be any different. I’ve got two big jobs to do tomorrow that between the two will pay over 8 billable hours. Not to mention the other jobs I have to do.
Now I’m home. Just shy of 12:30. So that’s an improvement.
I’m feeling better still. Struggling with my language, though, when I’m frustrated. I’ve fallen quite a bit since struggling with my faith again.
I’ll figure it out.
Good night, folks. 🙂
~ stephen
Lift the World 
I love you brother…
Great news on the Tacoma – we just bought an ’02 Tacoma with only 112k on it, (factory service records for its entire lifespan). We were crossing our fingers we got a deal, but looks like we did! Great news on getting to bed, too! As for language, yes, it’s a form of self-control, but it’s also a form of self-expression. Bottled emotions = bombs. Better an F bomb now, than a nuclear meltdown later? Also, the philosophy of cursing is an interesting academic wandering, if you ever want to research anything. Good night, dear brother!