I am a girl mechanic!
Wow. Today was awesome. Started out sucky but ended up awesome. I went to pick up my roommate, Sheena, from the airport last night so she's finally home. She brought me all sorts of lovely presents from Colorado, especially yummy food stuffs. I made my spaghetti and meatballs because she loves it and we sat and got all caught up before she passed out from jetlag.
This morning Sheena was making a list of things to do like going to get her car's oil changed, grocery shopping, laundry, etc... I was going to follow her to the Jiffy Lube so we could leave her car there while it was getting its oil changed and go shopping. Well, we got out to the parking lot and not only would her car not start, but the front left tire was also completely flat. Great. Trying to avoid panicking, we assumed that she needed a new battery (Sheena said that she knew she was going to have to replace it soon anyway) so we went off to Wal-Mart, bought one, then did our grocery shopping.
After getting home we looked up a tutorial on how to change car batteries online. However, almost every tutorial we looked at said that the signs Sheena's car was giving didn't mean a dead battery, but rather that the starter was bad which meant towing her car to a mechanic and big-time repair bills. This disheartened us considereably. Still, Sheena needed a new car battery anyway so we decided to go ahead with it anyway. So then we looked under the hood and realized that we didn't have the right tools for the job so we ran back to Wal-Mart and picked up a ratchet set.
Back home we managed to get the battery changed without too much hassle. Sheena went to start the car and we both prayed and crossed our fingers.
IT STARTED! This was a MAJOR relief. The flat tire was an easy and inexpensive fix. We couldn't immediately bring her car in for a new tire so we just decided to put on the spare. So we got the spare on and as we let the car back down the spare went flatter and flatter until there was almost no cushion between the ground and the wheel frame. Not good. I checked the air in it with my tire gauge and it was so low the gauge wouldn't even give a reading.
We were soon going to lose our light so after some quick thinking we threw Sheena's spare and her flat tire into my trunk and hurried over to the closest gas station to fill them up at the air pump. We got them both to normal levels and ran back home. The "flat" tire managed to hold air pretty well so we decided to put that one back on. After taking her car for a spin around the block and taking another consistent reading on the tire gauge we decided to leave it on and see how it was in the morning. I have to work but if the tire's too low to drive on Sheena can just put the spare back on to get her car to a tire changing station.
We were SO proud of ourselves! As of now her car is running perfectly and all tires are in drivable condition. After finally getting to relax we ate dinner and played some Rock Band. Sheena's mom sent it to her as an early birthday present and we picked the package up from the apartment office just this morning so it's brand new. Great fun!
Yay for a good and productive day. \o/
This morning Sheena was making a list of things to do like going to get her car's oil changed, grocery shopping, laundry, etc... I was going to follow her to the Jiffy Lube so we could leave her car there while it was getting its oil changed and go shopping. Well, we got out to the parking lot and not only would her car not start, but the front left tire was also completely flat. Great. Trying to avoid panicking, we assumed that she needed a new battery (Sheena said that she knew she was going to have to replace it soon anyway) so we went off to Wal-Mart, bought one, then did our grocery shopping.
After getting home we looked up a tutorial on how to change car batteries online. However, almost every tutorial we looked at said that the signs Sheena's car was giving didn't mean a dead battery, but rather that the starter was bad which meant towing her car to a mechanic and big-time repair bills. This disheartened us considereably. Still, Sheena needed a new car battery anyway so we decided to go ahead with it anyway. So then we looked under the hood and realized that we didn't have the right tools for the job so we ran back to Wal-Mart and picked up a ratchet set.
Back home we managed to get the battery changed without too much hassle. Sheena went to start the car and we both prayed and crossed our fingers.
IT STARTED! This was a MAJOR relief. The flat tire was an easy and inexpensive fix. We couldn't immediately bring her car in for a new tire so we just decided to put on the spare. So we got the spare on and as we let the car back down the spare went flatter and flatter until there was almost no cushion between the ground and the wheel frame. Not good. I checked the air in it with my tire gauge and it was so low the gauge wouldn't even give a reading.
We were soon going to lose our light so after some quick thinking we threw Sheena's spare and her flat tire into my trunk and hurried over to the closest gas station to fill them up at the air pump. We got them both to normal levels and ran back home. The "flat" tire managed to hold air pretty well so we decided to put that one back on. After taking her car for a spin around the block and taking another consistent reading on the tire gauge we decided to leave it on and see how it was in the morning. I have to work but if the tire's too low to drive on Sheena can just put the spare back on to get her car to a tire changing station.
We were SO proud of ourselves! As of now her car is running perfectly and all tires are in drivable condition. After finally getting to relax we ate dinner and played some Rock Band. Sheena's mom sent it to her as an early birthday present and we picked the package up from the apartment office just this morning so it's brand new. Great fun!
Yay for a good and productive day. \o/