Today was a nut-busting day. 🙃
(And happy July, by the way!)
I accidentally filled my schedule with much more than I realized, so I started the day with I think eight or nine cars on my schedule.
Oops 😅
So I headed out early with my first job being at the Walmart supercenter in Bentonville. It was a 2006 Nissan Sentra that he had driven there, but it wouldn’t restart after he finished his shopping.
I stopped off in Pea Ridge to buy some parts because they were the only store that had some of the parts I needed for the day, but there were some newbies working the store, and they didn’t really have much of a clue how to do what needed to be done, so I ended up waiting like 25 minutes or something like that for them to figure out everything.
Gratefully, the strugglings of the autozone people did not portend any continuance of things going sideways. The Nissan Sentra simply needed a starter, which was verified by smacking the starter and having the car start after I did it, And though there were some typical Nissan annoyances, It wasn’t awful. It took longer than I would have hoped for what it needed, but it went fine.
Car number two was a 2015 Jeep Cherokee that they thought had a transmission fluid leak. They weren’t originally on my schedule, but they were right on the way to what was supposed to be my third job, so I suppose them in, telling them that I didn’t have time to do a repair, just a diagnosis, and if they were okay with that, then I would swing by.
They were okay with it, so I swung by and diagnosed a leaking radiator. They were a little confused because the liquid that was coming out was an orangish pink, and they thought that would be transmission fluid, but nope, antifreeze.
Miguel was working a Saturday as well, a bit uncharacteristically. He does side jobs on Saturdays, but he doesn’t do regular customer cars on Saturdays. He was super backed up because He’s been slammed with business lately, and he was feeling overwhelmed by what the next week was going to look like if he started it with everything that was going on, so he busted his nuts as well, and we had a little back and forth during the day with who was completing how many billable hours.
He won. 🙃
My third job was supposed to be installing a radiator fan in a Cadillac, but I called them, and they had already mostly done the job themselves. Unfortunately for the guy who was doing it, he ruined part of the wiring harness.
Unfortunately, the part he needed was not available right away, so I went on to my next job’s, unable to sit around waiting for him to be able to get the part. That said, I did him a huge favor by allowing him to keep calling me and asking for help, as I explained to him what he could do to solve the issue.
The same thing happened with another gentleman who was way up north and I didn’t have time to get him on my schedule. He had broken down in the AutoZone parking lot in Pea Ridge, and he wanted help putting a belt on, but I walked him through exactly what he would need to do. He said he was a DIY guy but didn’t have the tools to do the job, so I told him what to do and suggested he go into the AutoZone, by the park, borrow the tools, and just do the job right there. He hasn’t thought of that, and he called me back a few hours later to thank me for helping him get going.
It’s nice to be able to help people. So many people call and just ask for advice, and the teacher in me kicks in and teaches them how to fix their cars and how their cars work and whatnot. All over the phone.
Vehicle number three was a 2012 GMC Sierra that had a super bad front driver’s wheel bearing. Gratefully, that job went pretty smoothly, and I had a nice little conversation with the young man who owned the truck. He had started his own window washing business and was doing decently well but was about to move to Texas and was going to relocate the business there.
By that point in the day, I had booked 4.3 billable hours, and I was already significantly behind Miguel. 😆 It didn’t help that I had already spent probably an hour or more just in drive time, but he would have beaten me anyway.
The guy with the Cadillac who had messed up his wiring harness didn’t call back after that, so I’m guessing he got himself taken care of, which is good for him given that he needed to leave the state that day.
So it was on to car number four way the crap and gone south and Farmington. He had taken his car in to Big o tires, and they had handed him an estimate for $4,800 in repairs that it’s supposedly needed. So he called me to go out there and take a look at it, and after spending about an hour inspecting the vehicle, I told him there was not a single thing he needed to do right now.
He was frustrated to have to pay money to find out that he didn’t have anything that needed to be done, but he was grateful to me for saving him a boatload of money.
Those big chains really frustrate me. They screw so many people over.
Jerks.
Car number five was a 2008 Volkswagen beetle that had battery connection issues. That one turned out to be easy peasy. I went over there, pulled off The battery cables, cleaned them up, and secured everything back down for her. I got it all nice and clean and nice and tight, and she was good to go.
The next car stood me up, so I headed to the last one on the list that was a paying customer. The last one was a massive motorhome that had battery cables that were ridiculously corroded.
I ended up cutting back the cables a good ways and putting in brand new cable lens, as well as cleaning off the battery. It was a super awkward repair because the battery is in the front behind the main access door, but the battery cables don’t reach out with easy access, so I had to do part of the work from below the motor home and part of the work from inside the engine compartment, crawling in there and awkwardly trying to use my power tools with my arms wedged at my sides and whatnot.
Super awkward repair, but I was able to get the elderly gentleman squared away and happy, and that was good. 😊
That ended up being the last page job that I did for the day. After that, I headed over to a customer who was going to sell me a car that she had that had been sitting for like a year and a half. It was a 2014 Volkswagen beetle that she figured had major engine issues, so she had parked it and bought another car.
She so that to me for $350, which was The price that I pretty much couldn’t lose anything on, so I went ahead and bought it, and she cleared out a good bit of trash that was in it, and then I started trying to figure out what might be wrong.
The battery, of course, was shot beyond all hope, And when I pulled out the oil dipstick to check the oil, it was full like halfway up the dipstick, ridiculously overfilled with oil. So I jacked up the car, and I spent the next probably 45 minutes draining oil and trying to find different containers to put it in because I wasn’t expecting to do an oil change since I don’t do them as a mobile mechanic.
I don’t know how much I ended up draining out, but I think it was around probably 10 or 12 quarts. And that was just to get it to the point where it was in the safe zone.
😶
Filling up your car with that much oil can blow your motor. I probably explained that before, but putting way way way too much oil in an engine is just as bad as not putting any oil in an engine. You will oil starve the engine, grind the bearings to bits, and finally seize it up.
No bueno.
After the transaction was complete, though she couldn’t find the title, so she’s going to mail that to me, I actually managed to get it started. In fact, it started really easily. It made a bit of a nasty noise when it first started up, and it started blowing out tons of smoke out the back because it had been so overfilled with oil. I let it run for probably 30 minutes, not driving it anywhere at all, just letting it burn through the oil that was in the combustion chamber.
Well it was running, I noticed that the fans weren’t kicking on, so it was starting to overheat. I did a few tests to see if I could figure out quickly what was causing the fans not to turn on, but I wasn’t able to figure it out quickly, and I didn’t want to spend the whole lot of time there. As long as I kept the heater on, the engine stayed cool enough, Even in park.
So I locked up the car, and I headed back up to Rogers where I was going to do a favor for Miguel who had a friend who’s daughter’s car had a tire that was slowly leaking air because of a supposedly damaged rim. When I got there to change the tire and put a spare on, so that Miguel could get the rim fixed for her, there was no spare in the trunk. 🙃
So I headed home, got some food, vegged out a little bit, and headed for bed.
Love and hugs. 😊
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 