2023-08-21 — She Blew A Gasket

For the life of me, I couldn’t tell you what I did on the 19th and the 20th, other than that I’m pretty sure I mowed the lawn on the 20th. 🙃

There’s the usual stuff. Poke around the garden a tiny bit with my mom here and there to see what all is out there… Take out the trash… all the normal things of life.

But I don’t have much of a memory of those days, so likely not much important happened. 😅

The 21st was a nine-car work day.

I showed up to the first job somewhere around 7:00 a.m., and worked to install the shift knob replacement that I purchased online. It turned out to be a good bit more of a pain in the butt than I expected. I had thought that it was just going to be a quick pull off a screw twisting knob, slide it off, and slide the next one on. But no, it was an ordeal. So funny to me how convoluted the design of such simple things can be. Seriously, all you need is a simple screw to hold the shifter knob on. That’s it. The end. End of story. And some manufacturers are smart/kind enough to do that.

Anyway, so it took about an hour, slightly more than an hour, I think, but I finally got it done. And gratefully, no damage, which is always the concern when you’re having to disassemble all the plastic parts in the center console of a vehicle.

That was a 2014 Buick verano.

Car number two was a 2016 Jaguar XF that wouldn’t start. I went out to take a look at it, against my better judgment, because it’s a Jaguar, and gratefully, it started for me after I cleared the codes and reconnected her battery and everything. I couldn’t prove anything wrong with it for sure, and even the dealer couldn’t tell me anything useful. The nearest dealer to us is in Tulsa.

I think that’s one thing that people don’t think about when they buy more exotic cars. Lots of shops won’t work on them. And I certainly don’t blame them. I hate European cars. I don’t mind BMW and Mercedes as much, but Volkswagen, Audi, and all the rest of the European cars are just a pain. They are their own breed, and they are not a friendly breed. 😅

Car number three was a 2017 Ford focus that wouldn’t start. She said it just made a weird noise but wouldn’t start. Turns out she didn’t have any gas. 🙃

What I didn’t expect, was that it would turn out to be a bit of an ordeal to put fuel in the car. There was a gas station just a mile down the road, or so, so it was easy enough to drive over, fill up my 5 gallon gas can, and come back, but I couldn’t get my gas can to be able to penetrate the fuel nozzle flap on the car.

It was some kind of Ford-designed safety mechanism apparently to make it impossible to accidentally put diesel in the vehicle? I’m not sure. Whatever it was, you couldn’t just put The gas can nozzle in the hole in fill it, as it would all just spill right back out. Nor could you put a funnel in the hole, because the safety mechanism was exactly as wide as the gasoline pump nozzle. So the only way that you would ever be able to fill the gas tank with anything other than an actual fuel fill nozzle from the gas station is by having a funnel that is exactly as wide, at the tip, as a fuel station filling nozzle.

Not having a funnel that was exactly the right size, I ended up having to Jimmy the flap open by using a screwdriver to hold one of the safety flaps down while I used the funnel to hold the other safety flat down, which then unlocked the little flap, and a loud the funnel to be inserted in the filler neck.

Good freaking crap.

But hey, at least it was just low on gas. 🥳

Car number 4 was the 2012 Ford edge that needed the starter, battery, and battery fuse assembly. Gratefully, that went rather well, and though it was 99° out, or whatever it was, I had my canopy with me, so I was able to stay mostly out of the blistering, boiling heat.

Car number five was a 2014 GMC terrain that wouldn’t start. I noticed that the security light was flashing when trying to start the vehicle, so I knew that it wasn’t recognizing the key. The owner of the car was with a friend or significant other or something, so I sent them off to AutoZone to get a new battery for her key fob, which she did, and upon returning, the car fired up just fine. It still had key warning messages, but now it was at least starting.

Her key fob was in pretty disastrous condition, so I recommended that they go out and have two more key fobs made as soon as possible, being sure to remember to have the actual key part of the fob cut properly for the vehicle, just in case the battery died with the doors locked, they would still be able to get in as long as they also had the key cut properly in addition to being programmed properly.

Car number six was a 2004 Chevrolet Corvette that had the shift cable bushing brake on it. We didn’t know whether it was the bushing that goes on the transmission and, or the bushing that goes on the shifter end, but we guessed it was at the shifter, and after fighting fairly significantly in the blistering heat, black pavement, and what not, we finally got it. I was leaving little puddles of water everywhere in his car, laying down towels and what not to try and keep from getting everything soggy.

It was a beautiful car with like 7000 original miles.

And talk about being nervous about breaking things when disassembling a center console… 😅.

Eventually, with some YouTube help, and some help from the owner himself as well, we were able to get it taken care of.

Car number 7 was a 2002 Chevrolet suburban. It was way down on the east side of Fayetteville. She had said she needed a starter, but she only needed a battery. She was a deaf lady who had used a communication service to communicate with me, the which I had forgotten until I showed up to fix the car, and she struggled to communicate with me a bit. She had learned to speak, but she was a bit challenging to understand.

That’s a challenge I’m grateful I don’t have to face, at least haven’t had to to this point in my life.

I think it was like 6:00 p.m. by that time, and I checked the weather, and I think at that point it was 99° with a real feel of 117°. The high for the day had been 100°, I think.

It was absolutely brutal outside. 🥵

Anyway, so I got that one taken care of and headed off to car number ain’t which was a 2007 Hyundai accent. This was the same Hyundai accent that I had replaced the crankshaft position sensor on a month or two prior.

It had very similar symptoms, but this time there was no crankshaft position sensor code, and I could get it to start with starting fluid. It would just crank and crank without it, but as soon as I squirted it with starting fluid, it would start up and it would actually stay running. But the second that you put the gas on, it would cut out. You could slowly rev it up and get all the way to like three or four thousand RPMs, but you couldn’t just put the gas on, or it would cut out. I was thinking that maybe it had a low fuel pressure issue or something like that, by checking fuel pressure on those is a nightmare.

Anyway, I did some testing, unable, in the time that I had, to figure out exactly what was going on, and then headed to my last job of the night.

The last job of the night, was an Acura that needed the belt put back on. The tensioner adjustment nut had rounded off a bit, but gratefully, I was able to get the belt back on for the gentleman. I also spent about 45 minutes trying to charge his battery because it was drained down to nothing. Unfortunately, I don’t think the battery was salvageable, but I did try and charge it up for him, for which he paid me a bit extra to stay and do all that.

Funny, between the nine cars, I didn’t even get a full 11 billable hours. I did reach my goal of 10 plus. I think it was just shy of 11, but it’s amazing to do that many cars and have them all be just quickies for the most part.

Well, I guess I did give some discounts. I gave a discount to the Corvette guy because it took a heck of a lot longer than it should have had I known how those convertible Corvette center consoles were removed. But I didn’t, so it took a lot longer.

Anyway, all in all, it was a very successful day, so that was great.

Oh! That actually wasn’t the last car of the night. I went back to that Dodge Dart that I had worked on a week or so prior that had gradually gotten harder and harder to start until it wouldn’t start at all. I went out to take a look at it, and very quickly this time, I found that the head gasket was blown. 😬

There was coolant in the oil, and that was the issue. The head gasket had blown so badly that it didn’t have enough compression to start the car. I suppose it could have a cracked head as well, but most likely it’s just a badly blown head gasket.

I started to significantly doubt myself. I remember wondering the day that it had issues if something might have been my fault. I had accounted for fuel troubles, spark troubles, everything but compression that first day when I was trying to figure out what on earth had happened. When the only thing that was left was compression that I could think of, I had worried that maybe I had screwed up somehow.

That worry returned when I found that the reason it wouldn’t start was because of the blown head gasket.

Could I have caused that issue? Stressfully I’ve been wondering. I’ve been going back over everything that I did. I know I didn’t bleed the system the way that it’s normally bled, but I also don’t remember leaving it running long enough for that to have even been a problem.

When I first started it up, it ran for probably 30 seconds, which isn’t Even close to enough time to overheat an engine, let alone to the point that it blew a head gasket.

I filled it with coolant after I realized that it was super low on coolant, and I started it again, and I let it run for probably another 30 seconds or minute or so, and then I came out and saw it pouring coolant all over the ground, so I shut it off again.

Then I spent probably at least an hour doing the repair to the cooling system, fixing the broken hoses and whatnot.

Then I ran it for probably 3 minutes? After having filled the system. It would have gotten decently hot in a few minutes, but not hot enough to overheat, or blow the head gasket. At least I would be super surprised if it could have.

What happened after that, I don’t remember. I don’t remember how long I let it run. I think I started it up one or two more times after… maybe while I was testing the HVAC system?

I just don’t remember. My memory going back over it says that I didn’t bleed the system the way the factory tells you to, which is often not necessary with cars, but that leaves me wondering, but My memory wants to tell me that I never let it run long enough for it to have blown anything anyway.

But could it be my fault? Could I have been the cause of their blown head gasket? I mean, the car was starting fine when I got there, and not by the time I left. The only thing that I can think of is that either I’m responsible, which part of me says doesn’t make any sense, or that the head gasket was already blown and was just getting worse and worse the longer I let it run.

I don’t know. I’m totally fine taking responsibility if it was my fault, but at the same time, I don’t want to take responsibility for something that may not have been my fault at all. The car clearly had broken coolant hoses, clearly didn’t have anywhere near enough coolant in it to be safe to drive when I got there, and it clearly had been in that situation prior to me getting there, so… Was the damage already begun and just finished getting to the point that the engine was no longer usable while it was on my watch? Or did I somehow ruin it?

Ugh.

I hate situations like this: There’s literally no way to prove anything. And I’m always stressed and worried, even when I have no responsibility whatsoever, wondering if I might have some responsibility. One of my tendencies is to over apologize and to overly accept responsibility, etc etc.

But is this my responsibility? I just don’t freaking know.

So… I’m trying to figure out what to do about it. The car has fairly high miles and isn’t worth a lot. I think average Blue book value for their model and mileage is about $2800. I think they owe about $2500 on it? Blue book values are only a guide, as vehicles are worth whatever you can get for them, be that more than the book value or less. Right now, car values are all over the place. Some people are asking way too much. And they used to be sky high, but prices have certainly come way way down since their peak last year,

What to do… what to do…

It’s a dilemma to add to the pile of pressure I already feel coming from 80,000 different directions.

What to do…

Lift the world.

~ stephen