I've had quite the run around with this vehicle I bought in Hawaii. My '97 Nissan Sentra has given me more trouble than it's worth. And the most recent episode came down to a $2.03 part. It's amazing how a piece of plastic can "ruin" your day. Poor Mitch worked on my car for a few hours Wednesday morning. He put the new starter in and the car wouldn't start. Then he saw that the negative cable attached to my battery was severed and the wires were exposed, so he replaced the negative battery cable, and it still wouldn't start. It was about 11:30 AM and we still didn't know what the problem was. We push started it again and drove to Kaneohe, which took about 45 minutes, and went to Checker Auto to return the $193 starter I purchased the night before. My Dad told me to ask Checker to run a diagnostic on my alternator and battery.
A guy from Checker Auto came out to my car and ran the first test on my battery. My battery was producing 12.75 volts and a good battery runs between 10-14 volts, so it wasn't the battery. Then he got a wrench, had me push the clutch in, and he hit the starter with the wrench, and my car started. He told me, "It's definitely not your starter, otherwise it wouldn't have started up." He tested the alternator and it was 13.97 volts and 14 is a good charge, so it wasn't the alternator. And then, it dawned on him. He went underneath the dash of my car on the driver side and looked under my clutch.
I'm thinking 'Great, my clutch needs to be replaced.' $$$$$ And then the Checker Auto man said the unthinkable...he told me there is a small knob that presses up against a sensor when I push in the clutch that tells the car to start and the knob was missing. He told me to go to the Nissan dealership down the road and to buy the part and install it myself. I asked him how much he thought it would cost and he said about $3. I couldn't believe it! I thanked him so much for all of his help and headed straight for Nissan.
I went to the Nissan Parts counter and explained to the man what I needed. He pulled the part right out of the drawer in front of him. HA HA! He didn't even need to leave his chair. Unreal! The part came out to $2.03 with tax. Debra Jo stayed out in the car because we had to keep it running, otherwise if we turned it off, it wouldn't start again. So Mitch and I walk out to the car with our nice little $2.03 part and it took him all of 5 seconds to install it. Mitch told me to turn my car off and back on and I was afraid to! But I did, and it fired right up!!! Who knew a small little piece of plastic would bring show much trouble and stress in my life! DANG! I'm so glad it wasn't anything major.
3 comments:
saweet! Lucky for you it wasnt too much
It's so funny, when you think about it! What you didn't tell everyone was that making your $2.03 investment saved us in the range of $203.00 because we didn't have to rent a car. : ) Who knew that a part like that even existed?
Hey, I LOVE your new main photo! I love you, too, BFF. I was really sad after you dropped us off. I didn't want to leave--it's so pretty there, and we had a most excellent time touring the island & visiting you. I'm so glad we came; we had so much fun with you.
I know when I finally make my Hawaii post (maybe tomorrow), it's going to be a million miles long. We ran out of memory on our camera. LOL I don't think that's ever happened to me before. Oh! And I have a story to tell you about our plane ride home. haha It was great until the last 30 minutes when a child in front of us started screaming because she didn't want to be buckled & her dad didn't do anything about it. The man next to me after 10 minutes of listening to screaming said, "Can you control your daughter? She's making my 10 month old baby cry, now." And it just got worse from there. It was so awkward, & I wanted to stay out of it, but I TOTALLY agreed with the man next to me. Basically in the end, both the couples were heatedly talking back & forth & the man who had no control of his daughter didn't believe in spanking, he just believed in ignoring innappropriate behavior, so when his daughter was waking up all the other sleeping passengers
because she was screaming, this man didn't care, because his approach to the situation was to reward his daughter with his attention ONLY when she was behaving appropriately. So the couple next to me said, you should give her a swat & that'll shut her up, and then the man with the screaming daughter leaned over to the kids of the couple next to me, and said, "Do your mommy & daddy hit, you? I'm so sorry they treat you that way." Oh my gosh!!! I was dying! I wanted to drop my mouth open. Finally the mom of the screaming child got up and put her on her lap & it was quiet again, and Mitch said "Thank you, it's about time!"
So the couple next to me & I sat in an awkward silence for about 5 minutes after that, and the man with the previously screaming child started talking to his other daughter who had been coughing up a lung the whole trip. She was saying something ridiculous like "Gaga googoo" and he was playing along with her & I don't even have a word to describe how I felt listening to all of this.
Fun times.
Ha ha I know, horses can be scary sometimes, but I LOVE them. I live in Cedar City Utah but am moving back to Az in December. YAY!
Post a Comment