I took it a little easier today. I got up early and headed out early because I wanted to get new tires on the front of my van before it blew, the wire sticking out and wobbling badly as it went down the road.
Gratefully, it didn’t blow before I got to the tire place (I don’t have a spare for it, so… that’s not so good). They fixed me up with a couple used tires in the front. I’ll go back for an alignment Monday morning.
First car today was a 2010 Jeep Commander that wouldn’t start. Turned out to be just really bad battery cables–all corroded and nasty. Was able to salvage three of them mostly as is, but I had to cut and splce the fourth one.
Second job was a 2016 Hyundai Elantra that wasn’t blowing air at all–hot or cold. Turned out to have a bad blower motor. Gratefully, it was an easy fix, and I got it done in no time.
After that, I had a job that I probably shouldn’t have taken, as it was a 50/50 job (either I’m going to figure it out quickly, or it’s gonna be a black hole). Turned out to be the latter. 2016 Mercedes CLA 250. Electronic shift lever wouldn’t get out of park. And, of course, being the modern tech-heavy cars they are, there’s not manual way to put it into gear, as it’s all internal, so in order to tow the vehicle, you have to put it on skates to even get it on and off the tow truck.
Good gravy. Engineers are doing everything they can to make these cars harder and harder to work on, it seems–not to mention more and more expensive to fix. It’s just crazy. PCV valves used to be $4 parts you could change in a minute or two–or less. Now they’re built into the valve cover, so you have to change the whole valve cover, spending lots of uneeded money and wasting lots of time. Shift linkage cables use plastic bushings that regularly break, but you can’t just buy a 10-cent replacement bushing. You have to buy the whole cable and spend a long time to fix it.
Supposedly we’re working towards sustainability.
Guess automotive engineers didn’t get the message. What a waste. More raw materials wasted. More pollution created. More trash to dispose of. It’s just… ugly business practice.
Wish I had a bigger microphone to call these companies out on.
Anyway, that’s not very positive commentary. I didn’t figure out the issue with the Mercedes for sure, so I didn’t charge them, and I helped them get their questions answered, including helping them get the towing situation figured out.
From there, I went home, getting home sometime a bit after 5, which is amazing considering how much I’ve been working lately. But it was good. It’ll be another crazy-busy day tomorrow. I’ve had lots of good-money days lately, so today’s near dud was law of averages, I suppose. Gonna have days like today.
12:43 a.m. Time for bed.
Oh, I chose to check in on my old stock stuff. Market be tanking. Guess I got caught right in the down trend. Funny, when I started trading, I had that feeling “not now. It’s not time yet.” Something like that. I ignored it. Just like I ignored the message that told me not to disassemble the dozer.
Paid for it handsomely on both accounts.
I got that same feeling about the truck I just bought. I guess we’ll see if anything comes of it.
Interesting…
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 