2021-08-25 — Love Them Batteries

Got the lawn mower quasi working this morning, so mom could mow the rest of the lawn. It had gotten crazy long from having been down for so long. Thanks, mom.

Five cars today. Tried to take it easy, but one of the cars kicked my butt up one side and down the other, so I didn’t get home until… 9?

First car was a car that wouldn’t turn off (the accessory lights). I pushed the shifter forward just a little more, and it shut off. Looks like the shift lock assembly or the solenoid might be going out. She’s just gonna deal with it for now, since she can just push a little harder to get it to turn off.

Second car was just a couple buildings away in the same apartment complex. It’s a brand new complex, still being built, but it looks like those ugly communist-style construction buildings that already look 30 years old when they’re brand new.

Not sure how that style came back in? They’re this nasty yellow-orange color, too, but I think they’re high-end, expensive apartments.

Weird.

3rd car had a window that had popped off track. I’d helped her with her car years ago. Then she moved to Wisconsin, and I guess she just moved back and looked me up again.

Cool. 😊

Fourth car was the doozy. 2014 VW Jetta that was a no crank, no start, with a push-button start system. Hate those. I traced it to what I thought was the starter. I even bypassed the starter completely, using my jump box to provide power and ground, and it still wouldn’t do anything, so… boom. Starter. Done deal.

Except… when I went to test the starter after I took it off the car (which I always do just to verify for absolute certain), it worked beautifully. 😶

Ugh. I thought I was done because the starter would need to be ordered from out of state, but nope. Not done. Not the starter.

So I started looking for ground issues, which is pretty much the only thing that can cause what I ran into, I think (starter not working on the car even when directly jumped, bypassing the whole starting system, but working just fine off the car). And what do you know, I found a bad ground strap.

After cleaning up the ground mating surface, I tested it, and it cranked fine. Problem solved, right?

Nope.

I solved the no crank, no start issue, but just like yesterday, it turned into a crank, no start issue.

Really?!?!

That… doesn’t happen. It’s super rare for a car to have multiple starting issues happen at the same time.

Ugh. I ended up spending over two hours there trying to figure it out before the woman of the house (the mother of my customer) came out and basically pulled me inside to eat dinner, spaghetti with meatballs and sausage. I didn’t have the heart to say I was vegan, as the food was already in the bowl, and they really wanted to give it to me, so I ate it, gratefully. And that’s what I’ll just do in the future, too. Not gonna be militant about my eating choices. Offers of kindness like that, when they’re already in motion, aren’t going to be turned away. Ahead of time, I’ll let people know I’m vegan, but not when it’s already in motion and going.

So… that was nice of them. I hadn’t had much to eat all day, and I’ve been losing tons of weight working all day every day, skipping meals right and left and center and… yeah.

All in all, I think I was there for three hours, including food. Probably 2 1/2 on car stuff, but I only billed for one.

Last job was a battery. A simple battery job. In fact, probably the simplest of the simple battery jobs that you could possibly ever have to do. Loosen the two cables, remove the one retainer bolt, put in the new battery, tighten the retainer, tighten the cables, done.

5 minutes.

Three hours for the previous service call.

5 minutes for the last one.

Nice to end on that. Headed home after that, eating second and third dinners, and here I am about to crash, heading into a long long day tomorrow. Gonna be nutty, and it’s another hot one. 95 and change. Arkansas 95. But it’s been nice that it hasn’t been at sauna humid levels. More humid than the desert west, but not drippy drippy nasty awful, butt prints on the driveway humid.

So… gonna eat one more dinner here before going to bed, and then I’m gonna conk out. Nice to have all the keys working on my new computer. I think it’s a little slower than my last one, but I’m not a gamer, so I don’t need much. Just enough to run the 30 gazillion tabs I have open at once. 🙃

G’night, all.

Lift the World.

~ stephen