[Grubb's] Random Thoughts of the Day

[Merk]

Just because the alternator is rated at higher amps does not mean that you will use it. The regulator controls the fielding of the alternator. Look on your equipment tag or window sticker to see what yours came with. I just looked on mine and it has a 120 amp. I run a plow, dump bed, salter lights ect. and never have a problem.

What is this a copy/paste from?

[Fluffyumpkins]

Called my bluff.

https://soundcloud.com/h-iwadate/robkta ... wanna-edit

[Merk]

Car is done. Everything about the car was fine other than the battery and the keyless ignition receiver thingy. I guess if the receiver gets fucked up (probably due to the storms) then the car doesn't detect a key and it shuts down after about 10 minutes. That seems super dangerous to me but hey, what do I know? They said that there is a power steering fluid leak too and that it would cost about $300 to fix, I told them to hold off on fixing that since I'll just have my preferred mechanic take a look at it, $300 for a new hose sounds like a load of bull.

Total damage is going to be about $650.

Enterprise Rent-a-Car was super cool though, they said I can return the car I rented to a different location than where I picked it up that's right next to the dealership and that they'll only charge me for a day rental even though I reserved it for a week.

[Fluffyumpkins]

Glad it's all worked out.

[Merk]

Yeah, I mean I guess it could always be worse and in the end it's only money. It's not like I haven't in the past blown a solid $800 on a sweet Beet set up or anything or $1400 on Colts season tickets for my ladyfriend and I. It sucks that this money can't go towards fun stuff but at least I'm not selling plasma or hitting up the check cashing shop so I can pay for my car repairs.

I can cut some fat out of my budget and make up the cost of the repair and car rental. Or I guess I can sell plasma for four months.

[Riot]

How many of those season ticket games did you actually go to by the way?

[Fluffyumpkins]

Wait until you own a house. All sorts of fun random costs to be had. By fun I mean expensive. By costs I mean hard liquor.

[Ho]

I just dropped $900 on my car this week: new radiator and a throttle position sensor (TPS!) thingy.

Emi didn't die, but she started running hot once the weather warmed up from the winter deep freeze. This was especially bad when stopped since air doesn't circulate as well then. The temperature alarm even went off once while I was waiting at a drive thru.

As for the TPS, Emi was having intermittent idling problems. Everything was fine about 60-70% of the time. Normal idle is around 900 rpm. Sometimes it would idle as high as 2000. Sometimes it would dip down below 700-800 and struggle to not die. Sometimes it would go up and down like I was feathering the gas pedal even though I didn't even have my foot on it.

Cars are as much computer as machine anymore. Some random sensor goes bad and the program can't figure out what to do anymore.

[MonMotha]

A bad ABS wheel position sensor will really freak you out...

Ideally, the various computers will detect and ignore bad sensor data. Obviously this is going to depend not only on the program but just how bad the sensor data is.

[Merk]

Well fuck my life my car died again about 100 miles later when I was in Bloomington. I have no idea how much this is going to cost me but whatever the dealership in Indy did, it didn't fix the problem and probably going to have to shell out a grand or something.

I really hope the Bloomington dealership doesn't suggest the exact same fix as the Indy one because that sure as fuck didn't do anything. I'm 100% sure this is an alternator problem but the Indy shop swore up and down the three times I asked them that it wasn't an alternator problem. Is there any other part of the car that would cause my dash lights and gauges to go crazy and eventually kill the car and battery after 10 minutes? Right now my car is in a state where none of the electrical systems work as if the battery is out of juice.

[Fluffyumpkins]

Sounds like the first dealership owes you some money for fixing nothing.

[Merk]

There's a clause in their paperwork right at the beginning that says something to the effect of, "We are not responsible for misdiagnosing or not resolving your issue"

I don't know the exact wording since I left their repair report with the dealership in Bloomington but it was something like that since I immediately re-read that report when my car broke down again and that clause was written in big bold letters right up front.

I swear to God if Bloomington offers to install a new battery in my car then I am going to flip my shit. I am not paying for another God damn battery that was replaced 4 days ago that will break down again because the alternator is clearly, clearly not keeping the battery charged and handling the electrical load for the vehicle. If it's not the alternator then there's gotta be a short somewhere.

[Merk]

Ugh,

"Yeah we'll look at your car but it will cost $80 to hook it up to our diagnostics system"

[Ho]

Pretty standard...

The diagnostic fee should go toward any work they do though. That's there so they don't diagnose a problem for you only to have you take it somewhere else to have it fixed.

[MonMotha]

BTW, Autozone and similar will pull any diagnostic codes they can for you. If the check engine light is on, they'll probably be able to get at least something. The vendor-specific stuff, which Toyota is actually really big on, they often can't pull, though.

You might consider getting a Bluetooth OBD dongle and phone app. Oh wait, you have an iPhone. Make that a Wi-Fi dongle (which costs more) because Apple is bitchy about what Bluetooth devices they'll bless for use with the iPhone.