An "interesting" Week · 9:42am May 4th, 2018
Let me tell you about my week. Driving home from work on Monday, my "Engine Overheat" alarm came on. A glance at the temperature gauge saw it firmly in the red, and I pulled over off the road as soon as possible and switched off the engine. I investigated under the hood and found radiator fluid leaking , and a thorough check showed that it was not a burst hose. I let the car cool down before trying to drive off again, but it rapidly went back into the red again. I gave up and called to have it towed to the workshop. Wednesday afternoon, I collected the car with a new radiator, thermostat, and gasket. $600
That evening, I got a phone call from Juzbunny – the bloke who was going to room with me at the FurDU convention on Friday and the weekend. His mother had died and her funeral was the next Tuesday and he couldn't justify flying to Queensland for the con. My hotel cost just doubled. $300
Wednesday was the deadline for a shipment of books to arrive for me to sell in the FurDU dealer room. They did not arrive. I admit that I should have organized them sooner, but my money was tied up with art. Stupid me. Missed sales $$$$
Nevertheless, I flew up to the Gold Coast Thursday morning for the convention. I'm also organizing the presentation of the Ursa Major Awards, so I had to be there for that at least. While the hotels has wi-fi, when a convention of furries is there, it becomes slow as molasses, so I tethered my tablet to my laptop for internet purposes as I have done several times before and I had data to spare. In the middle of the evening, the internet suddenly stopped working. Checking the tablet, I found programs non-responsive, so I decided to reboot it. It turned off but never turned back on again. Nothing I try will make it start again. Cost to repair or replace when I get back home $???
So how was your week?
Holy bleep on a shingle. Thats just, erf, I, er.. Ow...
YeeeOuch
Oh yeah. you got hit with a double-whammy, Goldie. Trouble comes in threes, they say. My week? this week , not so bad. The last month, however... I had car troubles of my own. On April 9, I had a lower ball joint on my Territory come apart while driving. Managed to pull over before it hit the road, after the control arm landed on the rim of the wheel. Tow costs: $120. Getting it off the truck pushed the wheel so far forward that it split the inner CV-boot and pulled the CV-joint apart. Car was unmoveable after that, but sitting outside my place. Went to get a new ball joint and CV boot, only to be given the wrong ones, due to complications in Ford's design and lack of spare parts in generic form. Rang around for a mobile mechanic: of five that could come to my area, two were out sick, one never rang back and one insisted the car had to be brought to the workshop, no matter how often I mentioned it could not be moved. The one I got a positive response from was so booked-up he could only come to see it on the 27th. So I decided I could do it myself.
After buying the Haynes manual, I perused the situation, and found it was not impossible. However, i didn't count on Ford's engineers being utter derps. The outer CV-joints on the front driveshafts are identical, the inner ones are not. The parts that the parts stores had available were for the driveshaft on the passenger side, and i needed ones for the driver's side. They are NOT interchangeable. Ford had a CV-boot for the driver's side available, but only at $487. Also, the ball joint I needed was not available as a separate component; I had to buy the entire control arm, which was, fortunately available as a generic replacement, at $275; but I needed it so it was purchased. After a long argument with the people at Repco Ipswich, including showing them the manual and even getting an entire replacement driveshaft kit out ($195 generic cost, $1265 Ford genuine cost), they managed to find a generic CV-boot that fit perfectly. Cost: $20. Spending another $75 on tools for the job (Thank you, Supercheap Auto, for your generic ToolPro range), I removed the universal joint from inside the CV-joint, replaced the boot and the control arm, got everything back together and prayed the boot would stay in place after it fought me all the way in tightening it down.
After a week, it's still staying put.
After nearly three weeks of hassles, running around and trying to explain to parts people why the parts they have in-stock aren't the right ones, my car is up and running and is now lovely and silent. I also replaced the front brake pads while i was at it; replacement cost: $90, and well worth it.
HOWEVER!!! Compared to your hassles, Goldy, Mine seem just like changing a tyre in comparison. I did manage to dodge a lot of labour costs by doing the work myself, got some nifty new tools out of it, and learned a lot about my Ford Territory. I will NEVER buy Ford Genuine parts if i can find generic alternatives after the prices they quoted me (and i thought Mazda's parts mark-ups were bad! A 2375% mark-up over generic for one rubber boot? Insane!) But with everything else you've had piled on top of your car troubles? You have my deepest sympathies, Goldy, and my wishes for a trouble-free rest of 2018. Your bad luck is totally undeserved.
My housemate killed himself in his room... should be getting a new one next week. This did not happen this week, but about two months ago, and yeah, paying a bunch more in utilities and rent.
Spent a bunch of money on my car too... new clutch and radiator... discovered that the fan was not working either so replaced that from a junkyard, fixed a brake line, and could not find a new instrument cluster so I did not fix/replace that. Spent about $800 just in parts and did the labor myself with a friend. At least the mustang GT is fairly easy to work on.
April was not nice to my pocketbook.
4853308
Don't ever buy crap from a dealer. Sometimes you can get ford parts from "ford racing", for example the clutch I got... https://www.summitracing.com/parts/fms-m-7560-a302n holds better than stock and still a ford product. Still not from a dealer though.
That blows. I hope good fortune finds you soon.
didn't happen this week, but sunday april 22nd one of our dogs died, we've had him for 8 years, ever since he was a pup, and after my mother came back from a walk with our dogs, still having fun and chasing each other around, he jumped from a small ledge, failed the landing and broke his neck.
Well for my Week Goldy, our Landlord wants us out of our apartment that we've been in for over 9 years and will not give any reason as why.
Maybe Somebody was trying to tell you something
Ouch. Had a delay in one air flight. Caused us to double our airline tickets. Last week though found out I had had diabetes, that really sucked.