113,920 mile service

back in NV at prestige.  oil change, nothing more.

$25

113,142 hiccups!

errr.

my car started missing (and i mean it never does this), and threw an engine light ...

bad news because i'm not entirely sure i can limp it the 13 miles i need to get to my favorite dealer out here. after waiting a day i'm able to get it in, not really worried about what's "wrong."  why should i, i'm covered, right?

turns out it's a split vacuum line, and lo' and behold, it's not covered by my service contract.

in fact, i spent a l-o-n-g time on the phone with chrysler and even the reps (i spoke to more than one) couldn't believe it wasn't covered.  my guess, and this is only a guess, is that it was simply omitted.

odd.

not expensive (only $46 more than my deductible) but still not welcome.

$146

112,469 new battery ++

i'm in CA and my car keeps acting like it doesn't want to start ... in fact, sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't.  not that big a deal since i carry jumper cables with me, but i don't like the idea of crossing deserts with questionable batteries ... you run out of juice in the middle of nowhere and you may get a lot more than a frame stripped.

so i go to the local walmart and get a battery to do my own swap (the warranty is better and it's cheaper) ... the switch isn't trivial since the engine compartment is SO tightly jammed together, except ...

when i go to pull the battery out, the air hose to the air cleaner is almost completely cloven ... not what i was expecting.

so i call up normandin ... they're able to take me right in ... i have them replace the air line under my service contract and install the battery for another $35.  that makes my battery more expensive than i had originally intended, but still cheaper than if i'd had the whole thing done at the dealer to begin with.  (i'm actually kinda surprised that they had the air hose in stock ... turbo versions of cruisers have to be getting just a touch rare.)

i'm starting to wonder if i'm gonna get nickle-and-dimed by the continual car.

$35 for battery install
$100 service contract deductible
$250 SCR

110,938 mile service

back to my normal guys, prestige in LV, NV.

they once again take my chapman coupon.  everyone's happy.

$24.

109,125 when the going gets weird, the weird are no longer professional

sahara are a brand new dealership.  so new, in fact, that they do not yet have signs identifying their business, nor built-in swagger from their employees who look down on potential customers.  i've taken the continual car here because my normal place can't take my vehicle for a fortnight and i'm hoping to have it back faster than that ... but, in this case, if wishes were horses, then beggars would be figuring out some other way to get to CA ...

this is complicated.  complicated enough that it's set me back eight months to do the update (and pre-date it), but the dance-able part goes something like this ...

i take the cruiser in.

i tell them that i've got an error code that has appeared and disappeared.  i also say, "and there's a ticking i've been hearing the last few weeks," which is true.  but, amazingly, not only am i able to get the noise to reproduce itself in the drive (it's pretty subtle ... sounds kind of like a quiet wind-up watch), but i also get the service tech (ST) to hear it.

great.

the ST is just barely at the third grade level of written literacy (he spells work, "worck" and mark, "marck"), but god bless his spirit and soul his heart's in the rite plaice (sic) and he takes down everything in detail.

two days pass.  i need to get my posterior to CA, but when the shop calls, the car's not going to be ready.

"um, okay.  can you just hold it for two weeks, then, until i get back?"

"yes."

okay, good.  not the answer i want, but my car's just as fine -if not "finer"- in their lot.

get back from CA without an update from the shop, so i call.

"oh, yes.  we've been trying to get hold of you ... [ed: that would be a lie] your camshaft position sensor is failing..."

aside from the lie (DID I MENTION THAT YET?), that would make sense.  it would explain the mild misfiring i've been experiencing, and the error code.  "...i'm sorry to tell you it's not covered by your lifetime service contract."

"uh, yes it is..."  this is just a simple case of being new and not understanding the concept of 'if it's mechanical, it's covered.'  it's become very clear to me over time that nearly no one has these service contracts, so i'm not surprised.  being a brand new dealership doesn't help.  "we won't go into that now, i'll call chrysler and they'll put the hurt on you  [ed: in fact i called chrysler immediately after this phone call and they did put the hurt on 'em.]  ... but i can tell from your pause there's something else."

and, in fact, there is more.

"... but when we fixed that, we brought the car out on the drive and it was still ticking..."  (at least they both checked it and told me.) and i'll just let the write up carry it from here, because it all feels so much more, um, "official" (caps are theirs on the shop receipt).

USING STEPHASCOPE, FOUND NOISE TO BE COMING FROM TURBO ASSEMBLY.  REMOVED INDUCTION TUBE AND INSPECTED TURBO.  NO CRACKS OR OBSTRUCTION SEEN IN HOUSING OR ON IMPELLER.  SEAMS TO BE BEARING NOISE HEARD FROM OTHER SIDE OF TURBO ASSEMBLY.   REMOVED TURBO.MINIFOLD ASSEMBLY, FOUND CRACKED EXHAUST MANIFOLD TO CYLINDER HEAD BOLT, EXTRACTED BORKEN BOLT IN HEAD, REPLACED TURB- & MANIFOLD ASSEMBLY.  REASSEMBLED ENGINE.
(sic)

now, in the event you're not fluent in the subtleties of reading bastardized shop-speak, what they did was replace my fricken turbo-charger.

but guess what ... no.  no.  it's much better than that.

after another two weeks, the ticking is still there.  so they, get this, completely replace my transmission.  
all told, they have my car for six weeks.

horror of horrors?  well, not exactly...

because i now have:

1. a new cam position sensor
2. a new turbo charger
3. a new transmission
4. two new engine mounts

and they had to change the transmission fluid, which means that i'm not due to do that in quite some time.  and hear's what's weird ... the cost of all this to me is $100, and the only reason it cost that much is the cam position sensor isn't covered by the lifetime powertrain warranty.  my new turbo and transmission are actually free.

but this means i have to do some adjustments to this blog, because i haven't had powertrain warranty work done before and this actually is a separate break-out item.


$150 in SCR
$6000 in lifetime power train warranty return

well hell in a handbasket

today i was driving my car and the light from a couple of days ago came back on.  it was still before the close of business, so i called the new chrysler dealer in the neighborhood and set up an appointment for tomorrow morning to look at it ...

and then wouldn't you know that the light then went back off this evening ...

hopefully the black box stores error codes and they'll know what happened.  i don't need my vehicle to act flaky as i drive it a thousand miles in the next fortnight.

goddammit.

108,975 light's on

it's been awhile since the engine light last came on, but it did this evening as the engine started missing.

i suspect the culprit is stabil.  i added some to the tank because i thought i was going to be parking my car for an extended trip this summer ... but the trip got canceled and instead of being parked for three months, the continual car was left to sit about four weeks.

the tank was about half full so i added some techron, filled the tank the rest of the way, and drove an exit on the freeway ...

voila, the light went off.

i need it to stay that way ... i've got a big drive coming up next week.