Dedication

I’d like to dedicate this post to my dad, and to my grandpa, and to all the Royal men throughout history who always had to fix their own cars because they were poor.

The Symptoms

1. It had been a couple years since I changed my spark plugs, so I’d been planning on changing them for a while. In fact, I actually bought new plugs and wires when I wrote Is It Worth It: The Oil Change.
2. My car had been a bit sluggish for a while. Granted my car is 13 years old, but it’s a Toyota, and it’s hasn’t quit on me, so I’m not giving up on it.

Assemble the right tools

If you’re new to my blog, you should know these three tools are a long standing tradition in my house. See my Proof that washing machines eat socks for another experience the good Dr. got me through.

And, if you’ve achieved “SuperDad” status, don’t forget to strut.

You’ll notice that I went with the two-liter Dr. Pepper this time. That’s because auto repairs usually turn out to be a bigger job than you originally planned on. The book I chose was Burning Angel by James Lee Burke.

Burning Angel by James Lee Burke

Side Note on James Lee Burke

Any writer who wants to see a brilliant example of how to create Setting should read Burke. I’ve read about a dozen books by him, and I’m almost ready to believe that Louisiana really exists.

Honestly, he’s good. I usually enjoy his mysteries, but Burning Angel is not one of his best.

Car Repair Gets Ugly

The first 3 plugs came out without any problems. And the plugs were all worn out, which was encouraging because that meant my diagnosis was correct. But when I pulled the fourth plug out, it was covered in oil. Crap. Time to refill my soda.

I pulled my valve cover off (four nuts and two bolts all right on top of the cover, so pretty easy), and saw the rubber ring on that plug’s tube was cracked. $3 at Autozone. Awesome. Time to refill my soda (a celebratory glass this time).

The Only Useful Part of This Post:

If you take your valve cover off, one helpful hint is that the washers under the nuts have a rubber center. The rubber fits snugly over the bolt, so they help keep the oil in . . . they also make it almost impossible to remove the valve cover while they are still on the bolts. I didn’t realized this, and since my valve cover was covered in dirt, I couldn’t tell the washers were any different than the cover. So I wasted a lot of time trying to pull the valve cover off before I discovered the rubber washers.

The Explosion

Well . . . I hope not. But I have to wait 24 hours for the RTV sealant to cure before I can start my car. If you don’t hear from me by of the end of the week I might be chatting with some of my poor Royal ancestors.

Before and After

What Was Jesus’ Budget?

That’s the motto of my family’s finances. It means we try to live as humbly as possible because it forces us to trust God more. . . and that is a beautiful way of saying I’m a tight-wad.

One of the reasons I was excited about moving into a house, was I thought we could save money on car maintenance; our new house has a garage where I could do minor repairs.

When I was at the auto parts store picking out oil and a filter, I noticed one of the sales people watching me. He smiled (in retrospect, I think I remember saliva dribbling out of the corner of his mouth). “You doing an oil change?”
“Yep.”
He handed me a mountain of coupons. “We’ve got a special.”

I was flattered by his thoughtfulness (that’s probably why I ignored the saliva). He even helped me carry my oil out to my car.

On the way home, I started thinking. (I’m not much of an in-the-moment thinker. I’m more of an after-the-fact thinker, and my thought is almost always “Good grief, what did I just do?”)

I just spent $15 on oil and filter.

For the last 10 years I’ve paid the quick oil change places $17 to do the work for me. Plus, they would top off my other fluids, dispose of the oil for me, and once in a while you can find a $5 off coupon and get an oil change for $12. But wait, this deal gets better. While your waiting, you can read a couple chapters of a good book rather than getting covered in oil. Granted, you have to put up with the sales pitch where they try to talk you into flushing your transmission fluid, radiator fluid, and changing the air in your tires, but if you’re strong (or cheap, like me) you’ll be able to say no.

Oh well. I’ve got my work clothes on, so I’m off to get covered in oil . . . my wife just cleaned our bathroom, so pray for me.

Post Oil Change UPDATE
Good grief, what did I just do? I could have returned the oil.

The Meltdown

My tire didn’t just go flat, it exploded. No hope for repair, no future as a tire swing.

I’m a handy guy, so I thought I’d change the tire myself. After my last flat, I even bought a 2-ton jack that I keep in the trunk of my car, most of the time. The only time I take the jack out is if I need the trunk space to haul stuff. For example, if I had just moved into a new house . . .

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you look at it), I still had the scissor jack with the spare. So, I loosened the lug nuts, jacked the car into the air, took one lug nut off. That’s when I noticed the car shifting.

This was one of those slow-motion experiences. I knew something was wrong, but I wasn’t sure what. I glanced back towards the trunk with my angry face–that’s the natural expression my face reverts to when I don’t understand what’s happening–then I realized the car was falling, and did a weird flop/hop backwards out of the way.

Here’s the kicker. Are you sitting down? The jack sunk two inches into the pavement. If you drive past our local library you’ll notice a huge divot in the ground. That marks the spot where my life as a blogger almost ended (of course, I’d probably also be excused from changing any more poopy diapers . . . no, not worth it).

The Insurance Company and their Outsourced Phone Service that Connects to the Outsourced Road-Side Assistance Company that Calls Someone Else to do the Work

I’ve paid five bucks a month for the past five years for Road-Side Assistance, and this is the third time I’ve ever used them; I think I’m losing that gamble.

I walked over to the library and find a modern miracle–a working payphone. I called my insurance company, gave them all my info, got redirected to the Road-Side Assistance Phone company, gave them all my information, got redirected to the actual Road-Side Assistance company, only to discover the operator couldn’t hear me. Eventually, she realized I’d called from a pay phone and explained that there is some technological glitch with payphones that makes it difficult for her to hear people who call from them. . .apparently cell phones have better connections than land lines. That amazed me, but for some reason it also made me laugh and everything started going back uphill from there.

I was at the library so I checked out a book and found a nice place to read (that’s all I wanted to do anyway).

In about 20 minutes, someone from a local tow company pulled up next to my car with AC/DC blaring on the radio and I had a flash back to high school. The repairman was a great guy, and he changed my tire in about 5 seconds.

The Moral of the Story

If you pay $60 a year for Road-Side Assistance, make sure you also pay $60 a month for a cell phone. Of, course that could probably all be avoided if you paid $260 a month for a new car. And while we’re spending money, let’s throw in $2600 a year for insurance that redirects you three times before sending someone else to do the work.

The Other Moral of the Story

It’s good to be the middle-middle man.