Mechanical Knowledge, FTW
So I bring my beat-up car into this new (to me) mechanic and tell him what it's doing (the whole battery-draining thing). I explain that I assume there is some sort of connection being constantly grounded which drains the damn thing down to nothingness. I ok them for an hour of labor (at about $78/hour) and go along my merry way.
They don't find the problem Friday, they keep it over the weekend and promise to work on it "first thing" Monday morning.
I call on Monday around, oh, 2 in the afternoon, and they hadn't started yet. Grr... Well, over the weekend I had thought about the crash (lots, actually...) and decided that the motors for my pop-up lights could have very well been disconnected and grounded. I share this information with my good buddy Steve, who mans the phones or something at this mechanic's shop. He thanks me for the tip, and says he'll look into it.
Tuesday (today) rolls around and I call up ol' Steve around noon to find out what's going on. He says that they checked the motors, and that wasn't the problem and that they had used up my hour of labor. The main mechanic (Leroy. Yes, I know...) said it could take anywhere from 1 to 3 hours more just to find the connection. Well, I ok them for an hour and a half and let them go at it.
Well, Steve calls me back around 4pm to tell me that it was indeed the driver's side headlight motor that was grounding, causing the connection, thereby draining my battery. Imagine my glee. Just try. I managed to summon far more politeness than I thought I could when expressing my joy at the problem being what I had told them it most likely was in the first place. Well, apparently I expressed myself well enough, because I'm only getting charged for an hour's labor and I should have it back tomorrow before noon.
Don't try to yank around a guy that works on his own cars when he has the time and tools. Fuckers.
Tomorrow should be fun because I have to pick up my Xenon headlight conversion kits from Baxter's and install them sometime during the day. I'm probably going to have to skip my Senate office hour, maybe my lab time, and possibly S&P, but I'm not too terribly worried about it.
I just want my car back.
They don't find the problem Friday, they keep it over the weekend and promise to work on it "first thing" Monday morning.
I call on Monday around, oh, 2 in the afternoon, and they hadn't started yet. Grr... Well, over the weekend I had thought about the crash (lots, actually...) and decided that the motors for my pop-up lights could have very well been disconnected and grounded. I share this information with my good buddy Steve, who mans the phones or something at this mechanic's shop. He thanks me for the tip, and says he'll look into it.
Tuesday (today) rolls around and I call up ol' Steve around noon to find out what's going on. He says that they checked the motors, and that wasn't the problem and that they had used up my hour of labor. The main mechanic (Leroy. Yes, I know...) said it could take anywhere from 1 to 3 hours more just to find the connection. Well, I ok them for an hour and a half and let them go at it.
Well, Steve calls me back around 4pm to tell me that it was indeed the driver's side headlight motor that was grounding, causing the connection, thereby draining my battery. Imagine my glee. Just try. I managed to summon far more politeness than I thought I could when expressing my joy at the problem being what I had told them it most likely was in the first place. Well, apparently I expressed myself well enough, because I'm only getting charged for an hour's labor and I should have it back tomorrow before noon.
Don't try to yank around a guy that works on his own cars when he has the time and tools. Fuckers.
Tomorrow should be fun because I have to pick up my Xenon headlight conversion kits from Baxter's and install them sometime during the day. I'm probably going to have to skip my Senate office hour, maybe my lab time, and possibly S&P, but I'm not too terribly worried about it.
I just want my car back.