Photo-A-Day #1265
Today was colorful because I suited up and headed back into the office after a two week vacation. It was very weird not to be wearing a Hawaiian shirt. I came back to a new boss and two demonstrations. My new boss is a good friend of mine and I am so happy for him and his promotion. He rocks. Of course, he’ll only be my boss till October 15th when I switch groups.
Today was also colorful because my car rode rough all the way to work, which I attributed to sitting still for 2+ weeks. It was idling very rough too. But I got to work without incident. I completed my first demo, had lunch and headed off to demo #2. The second demo was for customers who were at the office so I had to go to another building to do the demo. I started the car and the check engine light came on, the idle was really rough again so I called my supervisor and told him that I was concerned about the car and was going to stop at the auto shop. We had to do some creative maneuvering but he came and picked me up brought me to the other building so I could demo and then brought me back. Again, He rocks.
The garage was unable to recreate my problem and so I got the car back, minus $108 for the time they spent chasing the issue. I drove the car home and there was nothing else that happened. Gotta love it.
Also we just got a cable box that is also a DVR and for some reason it shows me the ComCast guide but tells me that the station will be available in a few moments but never happens. I need to call them to get this figured out.
A lot of things can cause that check engine light to go on. One of them is not screwing the gas cap on tight enough after filling the tank. I had not known this.
I had been driving the car (the 1999 Ford Escort that we don’t have anymore), and I filled the tank. The next day, Mike drove it to work and the check engine light came on. He freaked out and called the Ford dealer, made an appointment to bring it in. He was told it would cost $150 just to check it out. But they couldn’t look at the car for a few days, they were booked solid.
Meanwhile, I was searching the web for causes of the light coming on, and that is where I read about the gas cap thing. I also learned that if that light comes on, you can take the car to AutoZone and they will hook it up to the same machine that the Ford dealer has, and test it for free. A lot cheaper than $150!
So I told Mike about the gas cap thing, and he tightened it. The next day, the light went off, and it never came back on again. We only got rid of that car because later there was other stuff wrong with it that would have been too expensive to fix, given what the car was worth. We were lucky to get $1500 for it in trade for our 2007 Ford Focus.
BTW, newer cars have a separate light now for the gas cap thing. I don’t know how old your car is, or when manufacturers started putting this in. But it’s a great idea, saves people a lot of money and grief.
As for the engine running rough, try putting some of that gas tank cleaning additive stuff in there after your next fill-up. The engine on the Escort, which we bought used, always ran a bit rough, but using the additive every so often helped with that.
Hope this won’t end up costing your more than $108!
Christines last blog post..Now I CAN’T go back to my doctor…
Christine,
Thanks for the insight. I had heard about the gas cap thing but that wasn’t the case in this instance. The car seems to be running fine now, I don’t know if it was just from not using the car for 2 weeks or something but it was weird yesterday but fine today. Odd.
A)Thanks Christine for all that info!!! I’ve had my share of vehicle woes recently and that is good to know!!
B)Drewbie I’m sure your issue was with the car being idle for that long. I just saw a news report talking about the additive ethanol and how it attracts moisture allowing water to settle to the bottom of your gas tank and giving you false reads…oh and destroying your engine. In truth, that’s what happened to my focus…right after I finished paying for it. Just be careful of where you go for gas-primary offenders are those that are not name brand gas stations. Shell has a detergent added to even it’s lowest grade and that’s the one that Honda recommends. Chevron does too-but I don’t know that there are many of those in this area.
C) Have fun this weekend!! We’ll miss you guys!!
Mo,
I see that you are in Maine, I hope your visit home is a great one. I’m also pretty sure that my car sitting so long was the problem. We will miss you this weekend too.