(written on the 13th)
Successful work day today. 🙂
I finished six cars and just over 10 billable hours. 🥳
Card number one was a 2013 Dodge avenger in Pea Ridge. She needed a Master window switch, a cabin air filter, and she wanted to know where the oil was leaking from.
The job went decently well, though it seemed like every piece of plastic I touched decided to break. Part of the glove box retainer broke, so I had to epoxy that back on, not that it really needed it to stay in properly, but still.
Then part of the super thin and delicate plastic that goes around the master window switch cracked, but fortunately not in any place that you can see it, and not anything that would cause issues I don’t think.
Then as I was trying to be careful putting that same piece together with the master switch in, it cracked in a place that was visible.
🙄
Old brittle plastic is not my friend. 😅
Fortunately, the lady didn’t care.
One car down.
Car number two was a 2013 Mazda 3 that was making a clunking sound in the front end going over bumps and whatnot. At first, we couldn’t reproduce the sound, but then he did a u-turn, and it clunks super badly. So we got it back to his house, and I popped the hood, and the driver side strut mount was completely broken away from the strut itself. 😶
Not so great. 😅
Fortunately, gravity will keep the car resting down on the strut, so unless he decides to jump it over something, the strut will stay vertical. 😆
I had a super busy day, so scheduling the repair for that one wasn’t smart for that day, so I scheduled it for Friday.
Car number 3 was going Back to that 2009 Lincoln MKZ They had blown out the brakes on the front. I replaced the front pads and rotors and caliper, but as busy as I was, it wasn’t going to be smart for me to try and do the rear pads or try and bleed it. Fortunately, they aren’t in a big hurry, so I told them that I would come back another day to do the rear brake pads and to bleed it.
I really hope the bleeding goes okay. They let all the brake fluid drain out, and it’s been out for a year or more, so… 😅. I’m nervous it’s going to be one of those that doesn’t bleed very well.
Not looking forward to that one. 😬
Car number four was a 2016 mini Cooper that had a coolant leak. I got there just as she was leaving, but fortunately she didn’t have to leave, so she came back in.
It took me a little while, the coolant not leaking at first, but then I was finally able to get it to leak. The leak was coming from an odd place that wasn’t easy to figure out. I jacked up the car and crawled underneath, and I tried to trace it back as well as I could. They had the wrong color coolant in it, which made it hard. It should have blue, which would have been easier to trace, but they had a yellowish green or something that was hard to see against the metal engine.
Fortunately, I was able to find someone who had made a video about that particular leak, so I was able to verify that it was indeed that leak and then Let them know what was needed to get it repaired.
That one was in Bentonville. Car number 5 was way down in Fayetteville, and was just a belt replacement. So I drove all the way down to Fayetteville, slapped on a new belt for them, in a 2020 Nissan rogue that had like 100,000 mi already.
Easy peasy, gratefully
The last car of the day was going all the way out by the lake in Rogers, a returning customer whose car wouldn’t start. Given the description, it sounded like an alternator, and I had already done an alternator for them before. Fortunately, it didn’t turn out to be an alternator. It was Just a bad battery, so I drove back into town, grabbed a battery, slapped it in for them, and headed home for the night.
Six cars, 10+ hours, we’ll call it a successful day.
I’m grateful I seem to be reaching my daily financial goals on a regular basis. That’s a blessing.
Love and hugs.
Lift the World.
~ stephen
Lift the World 