Last week was a "bad car week". Wednesday my alternator went bad which took my battery with it. I got home and the battery was boiling over. Literally. There was crap oozing out of it.
I so had to drop $167 on a new alternator and another $70 on a new battery. I then had to learn how to install the alternator.
I consulted the Hanes manual and I and my old friend Dan installed it. Once we figured it out, it went pretty quickly. By 10:30pm we were done. It runs really well now.
Then on Saturday I was returning from Colorado Springs and I blew a tire. On the side of I25, in the dark, with crazy-ass drivers wizzing past, Dan and I were changing the tire. Thank God the spare was good. I blew a tire in April and the spare was flat. We got it on and discovered the problem with the old one. A previous hole plug had come out. As I was lowering the truck I said "I bet the Police pull up as we are cleaning up". Not 20 seconds later, the State Patroll pull up.
By then all we had to do was put the bad tire back under the truck and be on our way. As we hit the road again the truck started to shake. I dropped down to 50mph and all was fine. I knew what the problem was but couldn't believe that it would actually happen. (In June I had the spare tire swapped out with another on my truck.)
I found the nearest gas station and pulled off. There, under the canopy of the gas station my suspicion was confirmed. When they worked on my spare tire last, they never balanced it. Now I would have to limp back home at 50mph on the Interstate.
I will get new tires in January. There is still a lot of good tred on them but I have blown them out so many times that they are like plugged swiss cheese. I have had more flats in the 4 years I have lived in Colorado than every where else combined.
And don't even get me started on how long the average windshield lasts here.
I so had to drop $167 on a new alternator and another $70 on a new battery. I then had to learn how to install the alternator.
I consulted the Hanes manual and I and my old friend Dan installed it. Once we figured it out, it went pretty quickly. By 10:30pm we were done. It runs really well now.
Then on Saturday I was returning from Colorado Springs and I blew a tire. On the side of I25, in the dark, with crazy-ass drivers wizzing past, Dan and I were changing the tire. Thank God the spare was good. I blew a tire in April and the spare was flat. We got it on and discovered the problem with the old one. A previous hole plug had come out. As I was lowering the truck I said "I bet the Police pull up as we are cleaning up". Not 20 seconds later, the State Patroll pull up.
By then all we had to do was put the bad tire back under the truck and be on our way. As we hit the road again the truck started to shake. I dropped down to 50mph and all was fine. I knew what the problem was but couldn't believe that it would actually happen. (In June I had the spare tire swapped out with another on my truck.)
I found the nearest gas station and pulled off. There, under the canopy of the gas station my suspicion was confirmed. When they worked on my spare tire last, they never balanced it. Now I would have to limp back home at 50mph on the Interstate.
I will get new tires in January. There is still a lot of good tred on them but I have blown them out so many times that they are like plugged swiss cheese. I have had more flats in the 4 years I have lived in Colorado than every where else combined.
And don't even get me started on how long the average windshield lasts here.