Well, it’s been quite the day today. First time I’ve had a good auto repair day in a good little while, at least that’s what it feels like.
I struggled getting to bed last night. I had taken an hour long nap during the day yesterday because I was exhausted, but it totally messed me up for falling asleep last night, so I just laid there in bed for a good long time.
I know better than to take a nap during the day, but I was so tired. I wish I were the kind of person who could take a nap and not have it just completely ruin my ability to fall asleep at night.
But whatever. It’s all good.
I got up and started doing my morning routine, so that was good at least, even though I was tired. It was not quite as effective as some of my morning routines have been, but it was better than others, so I’ll take it, especially being tired after a short night’s sleep.
So on the one hand, I’m really grateful to feel like I’m receiving guidance from God, but on the other, I do find my heart breaking for them. 😞
Had a good long conversation with Heavenly Father this morning about a particular concern in my life that has been even more poignant lately because I want to take away pain and prevent more pain from ever occurring for multiple people, and I feel like I could if I just made a particular choice.
I’ve been emotionally ready to make that choice for a while now because I want to prevent pain for others if I can.
I was asking Heavenly Father about it again this morning, and He keeps giving me the same answer, or a variation on the same answer, which means I don’t… make that choice.
Even though I want to… for their sake.
I wait… I wait for His arm to be revealed, whatever that looks like. I think I’m prepared now for whatever direction the journey takes, whatever it looks like.
🤞
But that’s probably a really foolish thing to say because I probably don’t have even an inkling.
Anyway, I think it’s important to note here, even if just for myself, the timeliness of the direction I got from heavenly Father that, because later today, just this afternoon, i read something that one of the people whose pain I feel like I might be able to remove had written about the great agony they are going through.
It was heart wrenching to read. And at the same time, having received the message that father gave me earlier this morning, reading what my friend had written, I was sad and concerned, but i was grounded and calm.
Still, I don’t understand. No… I certainly don’t.
Unless I do…?
What a journey this life is.
…
Anyway, for my exercise this morning, I was finally able to start spreading mulch around the east side of the deck, so that was actually pretty cool to feel like I’m finally at that point. I didn’t get it all spread, but I got a good bit of it spread out. Still lots more to move around on that side, and the area down there might not look so great with all the skid steer tracks tearing up the ground, but I’m doing my best. Hopefully it’ll be a meaningful gift to my hill family here.
After all my morning routine stuff was done, I headed out to work for the day. Had a pretty busy schedule packed that got even more busy as the day went on. It went from being a full day to a huge day. Interestingly, I didn’t feel super stressed out about it, so that was pretty cool. Part of the reason I didn’t feel stressed out about it was that I had told multiple of my potential customers that it was going to be either today or Wednesday, which gave me some flexibility. Amazingly, in the end, I ended up getting to everybody. I did eight cars today, so that was pretty cool.
Before doing any of the cars, I stopped off at Pea Ridge to take back apart and buy more parts. The first job of the day was one I added this morning because she was basically on the way to what was previously going to be my first job. I hadn’t set a specified time for that other first job, so I had the flexibility to plug this lady in.
I got to her car, which if I’m remembering right, was a 2010 Ford escape that wouldn’t start, and was able to diagnose it as a bad starter. Grately, the local AutoZone in Bentonville had a starter, so I went ahead and ordered the starter, picked it up, came back, put it in, and that was that. Had a good little conversation with the lady who owns the car. I told her about my non-profit stuff, and she mentioned that she was getting ready, or at least hoped to be, going on a little mission for her Baptist church down in Mexico in a super poor area helping them build a church. That was super cool.
The next car on the docket was a 2006 Pontiac vibe. They asked me not to do any diagnostics, just to show up and put the alternator in, so I showed up and put the alternator in, and they, gratefully, had been correct in their diagnosis, as the alternator worked fine after I put it in. Of course I didn’t test the previous, so I can’t guarantee that it was even bad, but at least the new one works. 🙂
It was kind of funny that the person who wanted me to do the job had left more money than I had quoted, but he didn’t tell me it was supposed to be a tip, and he wasn’t there, so I left him change. Oops! So I missed out on the full tip, but I ended up getting a partial tip because I accidentally charged him the credit card price when I gave him the change, so I got like a $5 tip or something like that in the end. So at least it was something. 🙃
Car number 3 was a 2017 Chevrolet Silverado that was making a funny noise on startup. Unfortunately, I couldn’t reproduce the sound while I was there, but I found a recording online of what I suspected the sound probably was, and the guy verified that that’s what it was, which is just the Bendix of the starter grinding just a little bit when it tries to disengage from the flex plate. From what I’ve learned online, assuming the forums are correct, those general motors vehicles have some difficulty in colder weather on cold starts, and apparently it’s just the way general motors designs the starter that makes it so it’s not quite as robust or whatever at doing its job when it’s cold outside. Anyway, I told them they probably didn’t need to worry about it, but if they wanted to, I can replace it with an aftermarket starter which was less likely to catch as it tried to disengage.
Car number four was a 2018 Ford Transit that they wanted me to just come out and put a battery in, so I went ahead and did that. Relatively easy peasy and straightforward. The battery on those is underneath the driver seat, and you got to remove a bunch of trim and metal, but it’s not that big of a deal. I’ve done it multiple times.
Card number five was a 2008 Ford mustang that he said was shaking really badly when he tried to drive away one morning or one day or whatever. I got out there, and when I started it, it sounded absolutely great, but as soon as the idle started to go down to where normally sits, it started shaking super badly. It had check engine codes for multiple misfires on bank 2, and it also had check engine codes for crankshaft and camshaft correlation timing issues. Based on the symptoms I was seeing, it seemed most likely that the issue was either cam phasers or timing chain or possibly damage from a jumped timing chain. I chatted with Miguel briefly, describing the issue, and he was 99.99% sure that it was cam phasers that were the issues, and that certainly made sense, so I went ahead and gave that diagnosis. I told him that in order to be sure, I would need to do some fairly in-depth testing that involved disassembling parts of the engine. I recommended that he not have me do that, since it was clear that pretty much any of the possible choices for issues that it had would likely not be something that I would be repairing, as they were jobs far bigger than what I do as a mobile service. Timing jobs on that and general like 11-hour jobs.
So I only charged him half of my diagnostic fee, and told him he could use the rest to pay toward the tow to the shop that I recommended.
Car number six was a 2017 Land Rover Discovery that the fan was kicking on and not turning off after the engine was turned off. It would just run and run and run all night and drain the battery down if you let it. So, thanks to identifix and some mechanics who would post it on there, I was very quickly able to zero in on the likely concern, and test for it using the instructions at the other mechanics had posted, and I was able to find out within just a handful of minutes that the issue was a bad fan control module.
Thank you! To all of you mechanics out there who post the fixes for other people. Greatly appreciated, as you save me so much time and effort in my diagnostics.
Car number 7 was a 2011 Toyota RAV4 that was a no start with a rapid clicking sound. She had low coolant as well, so I topped off her coolant before I started it because it was so low, that there was nothing in the pressure tank, so I topped it off before attempting to start it. I also couldn’t find any evidence of any leak anywhere, so I told her to just watch the levels, if they start going down again, then she knows she’s got a leak, and if they don’t go down again, then somebody just didn’t properly fill the system the last time they serviced it.
Anyway, all she needed was a battery. I didn’t have one with me, but I got her car started for her and told her that if she would buy the battery from AutoZone, they would install it for free for her, so she was happy, and that got her going.
The last car of the day was a 2021 Chevrolet Silverado that had a punctured tire, except when I went out there, it wasn’t just a punctured tire, it was a big old gash. You can’t plug gashes safely and reliably, fortunately, I had already told him that before I went out there, so it wasn’t a big surprise when I told him that I couldn’t give him a plug that I could be confident would hold the air in his tire.
He also had these huge beefy nobby off-road tires, and I think those are probably the hardest tires I’ve ever had to try and drill through with the little hand drill that you use to rim out the holes to make it a better plug. I went ahead and tried to plug it anyway, using two plugs to plug the hole, and no more air came out, even after filling it to 40 PSI, but still, I don’t trust it and told him so. It should hold air while he’s just sitting there in the parking lot, but my concern is once the tire starts to flex. It could hold air just fine, or it could blow out as well, so I recommended that he get himself to the tire shop ASAP. Unfortunately, he works in Fayetteville but lives in Pea Ridge, so it wasn’t just like a quick drive home. It’s a 45 minute freeway drive.
He might end up just dropping it off at the tire shop and then getting a ride home which would be the safe way to go. Not sure why he didn’t just have me put on his spare tire, but… whatever.
After that, I headed home, pretty happy with an eight-car day. I gave multiple discounts, so I came just shy of reaching my billable hour goal for the day. But I’m pretty happy with the day anyway, especially considering I didn’t even get to my first job until about 10:30. So I will call today a monumental success. 🥳
Dinner, to-do list stuff, and bed.
G’night.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 