Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
So, you remember that minivan I bought a few weeks ago? Yeah, the one that was the nice, reliable Toyota, that despite nearly 200 thousand miles, didn't seem to have any troubles?
It has troubles.
While I was running around in Oregon recently, I noticed that the heater wasn't working all that well, then later noticed it was nearly overheating. I stopped at the nearest place which had water and antifreeze, since it was obviously low on coolant. I waited the requisite 30 minutes to open the cap, since I didn't want to compound the situation with steam burns on my hand.
Filled the tank (there's no radiator cap), and drove on. No problem.
Then, on the way back home, it did it again. This time, if I shoved the heater control all the way to "hot," the problem went away. The rest of that trip was spent with the temperature gauge as part of my instrument scan, and a quick hand for the heater lever.
A week ago, I had another occasion to take it out, and when I got to one of my destinations, I heard an ominous bubbling as I pulled to a stop -- and realized I hadn't been keeping the temp gauge in my scan. I clicked the key momentarily back to ON and sure enough, the temperature gauge was pegged. I went off and ran my errand, and an extra one a few blocks away, to pass some time. I filled the tank (having kept the antifreeze and water handy), and proceeded home.
So I brought the van into a very reputable shop yesterday, and described the symptoms, and what I thought the problem was. The man behind the counter kept this bemused expression on his face which said, "You have no idea what you're talking about." I assured him that I did know what I was talking about, but agreed that I didn't want him to blindly fix what I thought it was. Rather, I wanted him to find the real problem. He said he'd get to it around midday today, most likely.
As I was riding home last night, I heard my phone ring, so I pulled over and flipped it open.
"This is Ian."
"Hey, this is Nathan, from the shop. I'm calling about your van. I'm afraid I've got bad news."
"Lay it on me," sez I.
"Well, we started looking at it, and decided to do the head gasket check first. It failed. Badly."
"Oh."
"Yeah, so this problem usually totals one of these cars: it's a $2500-3000 fix. You have to drop the motor, blah blah blah," he went off into technical details.
Bottom line, my $3k investment ("Hey, I should be able to sell it for about what I paid when I'm done, right?") is gone. Three grand essentially wasted. I might be able to sell it for $500-1000, maybe, or it may be that I'll have to sell it to a scrapyard for a couple hundred dollars. It's got a lot still right with it, so I'm also going to look into finding a used engine, and I may just drive it as-is and top off the coolant every time I drive it.
Anyway. So much for selecting a brand known for longevity, and a model reputed to be without problems. So much for paying a mechanic to do a pre-purchase inspection. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate dealing with buying and selling vehicles? Yeah.
Posted at 09:51 permanent link category: /misc
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater