Well, from yesterday to today, it was quite the shift. For some reason, I woke up this morning and was just… Not in a good place. I don’t remember having a bad dream or anything that carried over to my waking hours, So I can’t point to anything really.
I was just… absolutely dreading the work day…
My angel mother had breakfast ready, as she pretty much always does, so I loaded that up in one of the little containers, and she even made me a couple sandwiches for lunch. 🙃 Thx, Mama. 🥰
The first job of the day was going to a 2012 Ford F-150 that the customer wanted me to install a starter on. He didn’t want any diagnostics, just to swap out the starter, and fortunately for him, it did indeed turn out to be the starter. Fortunately for me, the job went relatively smoothly. I did have to bang the starter out of the bell housing with a sledgehammer because it was rested on, but other than that, it wasn’t too bad.
Car number two was going to a 2005 Nissan Titan that was the same story: they wanted me to replace the starter, and they didn’t want any diagnostics. When I got there, the truck was starting just fine. It didn’t sound like it was happening any issues at all. They were pretty sure it was the starter, but it’s not a quick and easy job on that one. You actually have to remove the intake manifold because the starter is under the intake manifold. With the vehicle starting, and with the negative cable having been slightly loose, and given their description of the issue, I suggested that they actually not replace the starter, as it would be a $650 guess.
So instead of replacing the starter, I just pulled off the negative cable, wire brushed the wires clean, and tightened everything down. I only charged them half a normal service call, and I’m crossing my fingers for them that the truck will be good for a long time to come. 🤞
Car number three was a 2017 Ford Fusion that The gentleman had paid another shop to try and fix. It had a code for the high pressure fuel system. He had had the low pressure fuel pump replaced, the high pressure fuel pump replaced, the fuel pressure sensor replaced, and was now asking me if I could come look at it.
Poor guy had spent I think 14 or 1500, and he still had the same issue.
So I got out there, the third Bentonville job of the day, and pulled off his high pressure fuel pump. When I looked at the pump, I found exactly what I was expecting to find, a damaged high pressure fuel pump.
The previous mechanic had replaced the high pressure fuel pump, but apparently he wasn’t familiar with what happens when the high pressure fuel pump fails on those cars. When it fails, it actually can damage the camshaft. When you pull out the high pressure fuel pump you’re supposed to look at the cam lobe to see if there’s any damage.
What I found was that the camshaft follower had been ground all the way through by the camshaft lobe. 😬
It’s a really expensive repair. People sometimes just replace the entire engine when they run into that issue because in order to fix it, you have to remove the timing system, and pull the camshaft out of the head.
And the poor guy had spent $20,000 on a car that was probably only worth maybe 8 or $10,000 because he had really bad credit, and Car-Mart was the only one who is willing to finance him. It was just an absolutely astronomical price.
So now he’s got this massively overpriced car that either needs thousands of dollars of repair, or a new engine.
😞
Car number 4 was a 2016 Nissan Altima that they had asked me to replace the active grille shutter. They paid me for the part last week, and they weren’t there when I did the install today, but it didn’t go too badly. It fought me a little bit, but it wasn’t super awful.
Car number five was a 2017 Infiniti QX30. Yes, that would be a Nissan product. But in this case, it’s both a Nissan product and a Mercedes product. Honestly, that particular vehicle is more Mercedes than it is a Nissan. It’s got a Mercedes engine. The interior is designed like a Mercedes. I think they pretty much have a Nissan exterior and a Mercedes everything else.
Anyway, he had a coolant leak, and similar to the gentleman with the Ford Fusion, he had just barely bought this one, and had already put a whole bunch of money into it.
The diagnosis for the coolant leak was just more bad news for him, as it’s likely going to be $1,000 repair. The coolant leak is coming out of, as best I can tell, the thermostat housing, which on that Mercedes engine is on the back side of the engine between the engine and the firewall. In order to get to it, you have to remove the intake manifold, which goes across the back. It’s a nearly 6 hour job. 😶
So figure 600 plus dollars in labor, $100 in coolant and supplies, the part, and tax, and you’re right around $1,000 or so.
That was a bigger job than what I wanted to take on, though. Nissan factory service manuals oftentimes don’t give much useful repair data, so you end up having to guess on a lot of things.
I don’t like guessing when it comes to tightening parts.
Hyundai can be the same way. They’ll give you all the instructions for what to do but not how tight to tighten the parts.
Anyway, it was a really difficult diagnosis to make because everything is crammed in the engine so tightly, that I couldn’t get a good look at anything for sure. I could see leaks in what looked like two different spots on the thermostat housing, but I couldn’t be absolutely 100% sure. Looking at an exploded diagram of the back side, that’s pretty much the only thing in that area that would leak, but still, I like to be absolutely 100%. Realistically, it’s probably going to have to have the intake manifold off before one could be a full 100% certain. But I gave him a recommendation for a shop, and he was able to make an appointment to get it fixed for Wednesday, so that’s good.
That job was in Fayetteville. Job number six was up in Springdale. And it turned out to be an absolute nightmare. I was already a bit frustrated at how much of a pain in the butt it was to diagnose that QX30 with no useful access to see anything back there.
But this 2011 Chrysler Town and country window regulator and motor assembly job was something else.
Good freaking gravy.
I think it took me an hour just to get the door panel off. The plastic clips that they use are so strong that they can be a nightmare to get off. But this was two or three levels more than anything I think I’ve ever experienced before when removing a door panel. No joke, I had to use a full-on pry bar– using it as a lever to pry it with one arm while using all my strengths to pull with the other arm.
It finally popped free, but not before deforming the plastic on the door panel and, no joke, bending the metal on the door.
😶
Holy freaking crap.
The job kept fighting me every step of the way, and after 2 and 1/2 hours working on it, just barely at the point where I was maybe 10 minutes away from buttoning it up, the week plastic on the new regulator assembly snapped when pressing the window glass into it.
I was so angry. 😕
All that struggle. All that fighting roadblocks again and again and again, and finally, at the end of my own robe, but right what was supposed to be the end of the job, I was back at nearly square one.
I ended up having to drive from Springdale to Lowell to get another window regulator, didn’t get back to his house until almost 8:30, and he had to leave at 9:00. But his door was disassembling, and not even able to properly close.
Miraculously, After getting back from the parts store, I was able to get everything done in about 40 minutes.
That’s how it’s supposed to go, but given how much it had been kicking my butt, I’ll go ahead and call it a miracle..😅
Because that went a good bit sideways, my last job of the day ended up getting pushed to Wednesday, and I fell a good bit short of my billable hour goal for the day.
Gratefully, the customer was understanding about the damage to the door. It’s all in non-visible places and is just purely cosmetic, but still, it’s nice to have customers who don’t fly off the handle or getting angry with stuff like that. In fact, I think it can often engender quite a bit of goodwill to be transparent about the not so happy things that happen when working on cars.
Anyway, I’m grateful be heading home. I just barely stopped to pick up the mail and to grab the package out of the package bin.
It’s 10:00.
…
Now 10:30…
Gonna eat, vege out a bit, and crash.
Grateful tomorrow isn’t a car day.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 