update
First day of vacation:
After getting back rather late last night and posting when I should have been sleeping, there's no chance of sleeping in: I gotta get the Sebring to Pep Boys by 8 AM to finally get to the root of the overheating problem.
Easily done. I'm a regular there, having faithfully taken my service vans in for oil changes and service work for over a decade. They know me, and I'm fortunate in that I do appreciate the problems inherent in diagnostics and I sympathize with them when things fuck up. That being said, D2 and I gave them as much info as we could, and I trusted them to ferret out the rest.
What they found confirmed my worst fears. Hopefully, the motor wasn't cooked. What was cooked was the water pump. (That explains the upper hose being so limp when I was playing with it...) Add to that the timing belt, serpentine belt, and thermostat and I'm looking at about $1600 worth of work. It confirmed my suspicions--I had already checked the timing and serpentine belts and knew they weren't too good, so what the hell, as long as you have the motor torn apart for the water pump, throw the belts in too.
Yeah, I'm the one paying for it, and just as I was gonna zero out the credit card, it's kind of a pain to have to whack the card like that. But I'm rationalizing here: this is to keep her car running, and running well.
Part of the parental thing, you know. Any leg up you can give the offspring, the better.
Meanwhile, D1 and the SO are back in town, and I hope I don't jinx things by mentioning this, but watching the two of them interact, I find something encouraging--they mesh. (It was apparent before, but now it's blatantly obvious.) And what's even more interesting, they're considering moving back here. D1 mentioned moving back to my place while they got settled. No problem here, I got room! *grin*
They're at the ex's apartment now through Sunday, and at the Casa del Chaos on Monday and Tuesday hanging out. (Saturday, D2's graduation, Sunday, the graduation party. Talk about your event-packed weekend.) Of course, karma didn't stop at Pep Boys. I found the following taped on the front door when I came back this afternoon:
"Please be advised that your water will be shut off Mon 6/30 and Tues 7/1 from 8:00AM to 4:00 PM. This is due to improvements being made to your water system. Please be sure to have plenty of water on hand for whatever you may need."
(Hey, welcome back, guys! Time to rough it!)
Oh well. It's just enough to be with the girls once again. Anything else is minor irritation, nothing else.
After getting back rather late last night and posting when I should have been sleeping, there's no chance of sleeping in: I gotta get the Sebring to Pep Boys by 8 AM to finally get to the root of the overheating problem.
Easily done. I'm a regular there, having faithfully taken my service vans in for oil changes and service work for over a decade. They know me, and I'm fortunate in that I do appreciate the problems inherent in diagnostics and I sympathize with them when things fuck up. That being said, D2 and I gave them as much info as we could, and I trusted them to ferret out the rest.
What they found confirmed my worst fears. Hopefully, the motor wasn't cooked. What was cooked was the water pump. (That explains the upper hose being so limp when I was playing with it...) Add to that the timing belt, serpentine belt, and thermostat and I'm looking at about $1600 worth of work. It confirmed my suspicions--I had already checked the timing and serpentine belts and knew they weren't too good, so what the hell, as long as you have the motor torn apart for the water pump, throw the belts in too.
Yeah, I'm the one paying for it, and just as I was gonna zero out the credit card, it's kind of a pain to have to whack the card like that. But I'm rationalizing here: this is to keep her car running, and running well.
Part of the parental thing, you know. Any leg up you can give the offspring, the better.
Meanwhile, D1 and the SO are back in town, and I hope I don't jinx things by mentioning this, but watching the two of them interact, I find something encouraging--they mesh. (It was apparent before, but now it's blatantly obvious.) And what's even more interesting, they're considering moving back here. D1 mentioned moving back to my place while they got settled. No problem here, I got room! *grin*
They're at the ex's apartment now through Sunday, and at the Casa del Chaos on Monday and Tuesday hanging out. (Saturday, D2's graduation, Sunday, the graduation party. Talk about your event-packed weekend.) Of course, karma didn't stop at Pep Boys. I found the following taped on the front door when I came back this afternoon:
"Please be advised that your water will be shut off Mon 6/30 and Tues 7/1 from 8:00AM to 4:00 PM. This is due to improvements being made to your water system. Please be sure to have plenty of water on hand for whatever you may need."
(Hey, welcome back, guys! Time to rough it!)
Oh well. It's just enough to be with the girls once again. Anything else is minor irritation, nothing else.