Last week I had another car issue that I was able to resolve quickly. I had previously changed put the ignition coils and all was running well, but one afternoon coming home from work I got barely half a mile away and the car started shaking violently and the check engine light went on. It was a major "oh shit" moment. After some quick googling and driving back to the work parking lot, I deduced that another coil had gone bad/something was wrong there. I cursed the cheap Chinese coils my friend had hooked me up with and got a ride back home (where all my tools and the old coils were stashed). The next day I got a Lyft to work with my tools in tow. In the work lot I swapped out the old coils (which were worn but usable) and confirmed that it was an issue with the new coils. While doing this swap I found one coil had a bit of plastic sheared off on the inside, and I was able to confirm that was the one that had gone bad. I swapped it out with the least-worn of the old coil set and all is good again. You really do feel super manly when you can pop the hood in a parking lot and fix a barely-functional car without a mechanic or tow. I'm also still thinking about music names still. I realized I should sift through some literary muses for ideas. Repent, Harlequin! has a nice ring to it.
Just beware of the opposite - when you fix your friend's dead battery and end up cooking off her voltage regulator because red is positive and black is negative UNLESS YOU'RE VOLKSWAGEN. Or when fuses exist to keep surges from damaging electronics UNLESS YOU'RE VOLKSWAGEN. On the plus side, it's a diesel which means they're buying it back for more than she paid for it and this little peccadillo meant they accelerated the schedule three months and since they're going to crush it anyway they don't give a shit that the voltage regulator is cooked since it starts and runs. So in the end, she paid $180 for a new battery to get out of HER FUCKING VOLKSWAGEN. Which doesn't quite make up for the $800 they charged her to replace the urea sensor on their fraudulent emissions system BECAUSE THEY'RE FUCKING VOLKSWAGEN. So yeah. I know that feeling. But this week, THANKS TO FUCKING VOLKSWAGEN, I discovered what it is to cripple a car by changing out the goddamn battery. THANKS VOLKSWAGEN.You really do feel super manly when you can pop the hood in a parking lot and fix a barely-functional car without a mechanic or tow.
I thought the magical $60/bottle coolant that turns to jello when you mix it with Prestone was bad enough then I met this fucker. but yeah. Fuck those piece of shit nazimobiles.