3973 Highly annoyed

Friday, September 5, 2014

NOTE to everyone who has a blog I occasionally comment on, AND uses a Yahoo email id for comment notifications:  For some unknown reason when I comment on your blog I am getting "undelivered" messages from Yahoo, saying that the notification was not delivered.  As far as I can tell, Blogger sends you an email about the comment and changes the path to indicate that it came from me (or something like that) and Yahoo has decided not to honor "third party" emails.

This is complicated by the fact that I often comment on old posts, like a few days old, when maybe you no longer have any reason to revisit the post --- so you are unaware I have commented.  Sorry.  I'm really not ignoring people.  I can't do much about it except complain to Yahoo, and I'm not sure how to do that exactly. 

Oh well.

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Toward the end of July, Hal started throwing codes.  You know, the check engine light stuff.  Randomly. 

I took him to the dealership, and two weeks, a new sensor, and $450 later, he behaved again.

Exactly three weeks after that fix, last Friday, he started doing weird stuff again.  I had pulled into a WaWa, set the brake, turned him off, pulled the key, unfastened the seat belt, opened the door, and the siren went off.  For no reason whatsoever. 

When I came out of the WaWa and started him, he popped up the check engine light.  This is 6 pm on a Friday of a three-day holiday weekend.  Of course.  Can't do anything until Tuesday.

The Check engine light was yellow, not red, and the book says I can still drive, unless it turns red, then I have to stop immediately, so I drove (a little bit) during the weekend --- during which time the "service engine soon" light (which means that Hal thinks it's time for regular maintenance) came on as well as the check engine light.  By Tuesday the check engine light was off.  I called the dealership on Wednesday, and I have an appointment tomorrow.

I am completely and utterly pissed.  Especially since his warranty expired in early summer.  Funny how that happens.

Long time visitors to this blog may remember when Fred, the van, started doing much the same kinds of things, and one year, $9,000 in service, sensor replacements, and rental cars later, I gave up, bought Suzie the Suzuki, and Fred spent the next three years or so parked in the driveway, until an independent mechanic found a split in the rubber cover over the computer.  Fixing that fixed Fred.  It wasn't the sensors at all; it was the computer.  Everytime it was damp out, the computer threw random codes, made bad decisions, and stalled in the middle of intersections.

I HATE those sensor things.  Seems like they are supposed to warn you when things are wrong in the unit they're supposed to be sensing, but the fix IN EVERY CASE I have ever experienced is to simply replace the sensor.  There's something very stupid about that.

What makes all this worse is that I'm planning to go to Gettysburg next Tuesday.  This has  been in the works for two months.  And now I have an undependable car.  I am completely and utterly pissed.
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