Well, the weather warmed up and was clear, so I decided to go ahead and squeeze some work in. I didn’t start until like noonish, but I still managed to squeeze in six cars and to get about 7 and 1/2 billable hours in, so I was pleased with that.
The first car was a 2014 Ford focus in Bentonville that they had bought a battery for but were having difficulties figuring out how to change the battery. For a lot of those Fords, they tucked the battery up underneath the cowling, which makes it really awkward and challenging to get out.
Gratefully, I have figured out how to do it without taking a whole bunch of stuff apart like I always used to. So I went over there and had the thing swapped out in no time.
🥳
I failed to bring my scan tool with me that I had removed from my van not wanting it to be out in the negative temperatures during the super cold spell, and I spaced that I had done that when I left for work, and Ford vehicles require battery monitoring system resets when you replace the battery. 😬
Gratefully, I was able to find a way of doing the battery monitoring system reset without the scan tool on that particular car. You flash the brights five times and then press the brake pedal three times and then watch for the battery indicator light on the dashboard to bring a couple times, and then you are good.
Apparently, that works for a lot of Fords, but I don’t think it works for all of them. But I was grateful to have found that at least for that car!
Car number two was a 2021 Jeep compass that also needed a battery. This time, I provided the battery. She needed both her auxiliary battery and her regular battery changed, so I brought them over and swapped them out.
It wasn’t as easy as I was expecting. I ran into a handful of issues changing the main battery, but eventually got it done.
Two vehicles down, three batteries replaced.
Vehicle number 3 was a 2018 Ford f250 diesel that needed what, yep! Batteries! And because it was a diesel, I needed to replace both of them because you always replace both batteries in diesels.
Three vehicles down, five batteries replaced.
Vehicle number four was a 2010 Lexus LS 460 that had had a tire blowout. The roadside service company called me to get me out there to put their spare on, so I did, and that was done pretty quickly. Easy peasy. A little bit of a wet butt from having to sit on the snow, but no big deal.
Card number 5 was a 1998 Chevrolet lumina that needed a battery changed. That one turned out to be a pain in the butt. I wasn’t paying attention to how the bracket went on when I took it off, and general motors did this sort of afterthought design with it, so it wasn’t intuitive at all to put back together. It had the normal piece of plastic that you bolt down that holds the battery in place, but for whatever reason they added another bracket to it. Not only did they had another bracket to it, Believe it or not, they designed the bracket to go over the top of the little plastic triangle piece. That’s what gave me so much grief. Since I didn’t pay attention when I was taking the bracket off because I was talking to the guy and was a bit distracted, I had no clue how to put the darn thing back together and for a while concluded that someone had added the bracket and that it wasn’t original to the car and that I was fighting against something that didn’t even belong on the car.
Eventually, though, I realized that what it looked to be an absolutely ridiculous means of construction turned out to actually be how it was supposed to be put back together.
I was stunned.
It totally felt like the kind of thing that would happen if you designed a vehicle and had finished pretty much the entire design, and then came to the end and realized that you forgot about something, so you designed what basically amounted to a Jimmy rig.
Anyway, that was car number five and battery number six replaced for the day.
The last car of the day was a 2021 Ford Bronco that needed… Can we get a drum roll, please?
A battery!!!
🙃
Six cars. 7 batteries replaced and one spare tire put on.
I’m grateful that I decided to work because it turned out to be a super easy day. Lots and lots of batteries needing to be replaced because of the crazy crazy cold. Had I been willing to work on the nutso-cold days, I probably would have had a lot more batteries to replace, but I don’t regret taking the days off at all. 😊
I’m also grateful that I’m starting to emerge from my funk. Getting out and being productive is very helpful in that effort.
Seems like a lot of people I know are struggling right now. Lots of heavy things going on.
I’ve been struggling to dig out since my pornography relapse. Multiple friends and family battling with significant personal challenges. They are all winning the battles, but definitely challenging struggles. One friend dealing with super bad nightmares that I’m guessing are a side effect of her medication. Lots of people report nightmares after starting to take that particular medication. I remember some of the stuff that I was on… Oxycodone… Man that stuff gives me super vivid nightmares.
Anyway, happy to be digging out. Tomorrow is going to be another work day as well before the super cold snap returns for the weekend. Then it’s going to rain for like 4 days in a row, so I figured it would be good to pack in a couple of work days.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 