Was a pretty rough one today in some ways.
I went back out to that 1992 Ford F-150 with the power steering issues this morning, with an absolutely swamped schedule hanging over my head, needing to be done quickly, but ending up being there for something like 3 and 1/2 hours or more. In the end, she still has a leak at one of the hoses. The power steering pump still makes noise like it has air in it, but I can’t get any more air out of it, and her transmission shifts so hard but sometimes it feels like it’s just going to fall right out of the truck. By the time I was done, I didn’t charge her for any of my labor for all three and a half hours. I charged her for the fluids and the hose but none of my labor. I threw up the white flag and let her know that, unfortunately, I wasn’t going to work on her truck in the future. Every single time I go to work on it, it turns into a big ordeal. She’s such a nice lady, and I hate to not go out there, but that poor truck has been a nightmare for me for years. Today was sort of the last straw. I’ve encouraged her to get a different vehicle multiple times in the past, and I did the same thing this time.
From there, I went to a Chrysler 300M up in Bella Vista. She was having weird electrical issues, and I spent like an hour and a half diagnosing, feeling like I had narrowed it down to a couple things but couldn’t really test them properly for sure because the electrical connector itself was damaged to one of the components. Since I wasn’t 100% sure of the issue, I didn’t charge her for my time. I could have charged her anyway because it wasn’t my fault that testing was taking a long time and was challenging because the vehicle was already damaged, but she was pretty much broke and was trying to make enough money by selling that car in order to be able to afford a moving van or whatever, so I didn’t charge her at all and just called it good.
By that time, it was something like 3:00 or so, and I had been up working for like 8 hours already and hadn’t made a dime on my labor. 🙃
The first car that I actually got paid for was a 2019 Isuzu NRR medium duty truck. They called me out there to change the belts, but when I got there, after pulling off the main belt, I went to remove the secondary belt and realized that the AC compressor only had two bolts in it holding it in. 😶
They had recently had the engine replaced by a company that screwed up the engine, and they weren’t happy to find out that they put the AC compressor in with only two of its four bolts.
Yeah…
So I pointed out the issue and told them that it would be best for them to take it back to that shop and get everything taken care of. They are going to be using me for stuff in the future. This is the second time I’ve gone over to help them, so it’s nice to be making those connections, especially if things work out with the tech right now, as he’s really good with the bigger stuff.
The third car was a Jeep Grand Cherokee that wouldn’t stay running. I went over there, and very quickly figured out that the security system was tripped. They have an issue with their rear hatch door that keeps tripping the security.
The next one was going back to that 2000 tundra that I’ve worked on 80,000 times in the last few weeks. His idle was low, and that’s because we had lowered it because he was concerned it was too high. He had finally driven enough miles to the computer to calibrate, and it recovered it down. He had thought it was only 50 or 100 mi driving, and I didn’t know for sure, so I went ahead and dialed it down for him, but later I found that it was more likely 200 miles that needed to be driven before it would auto recalibrate. That meant that I ended up adjusting his idle twice. Anyway, I adjusted that for him again, and then he also needed breaks, so I went ahead and changed the front brakes on it for him.
He and I had a pretty good conversation for a while while I did the breaks and then a little bit after I finished. Really nice guy. He’s always incredibly effusive in his place for me, which is nice -ish.
The last car, when I got to after dark, was the 2013 Ford edge but I still hadn’t put an oil pressure sensor in. Gratefully, though in tight quarters, it wasn’t that challenging to get out and replace.
Anyway, that was the day. I got home late, but not as late as other days recently. My helper applicant person wasn’t with me today. He had some other things going on, and he offered to come but I’ll take care of the things you need to take care of and not stress. So he’ll ride with me tomorrow again.
Super super busy times.
Love and hugs. 😊
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 