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Done with things breaking kthx
Dec. 8th, 2007 11:40 pmI think I mentioned about the dishwasher breaking, and about thinking my freezer was leaking (no more dribbling water, so hopefully that was just a random fluke). Yesterday I noticed at around 4:30 p.m. that I was feeling really chilly. I checked my thermostat and saw that while it was set at 68, the temperature was 58. I could hear the furnace humming away down in the basement but it was not blowing any actual warm air up through the vents.
It was 10 degrees outside.
We have a service plan with the gas company, so at least this was relatively straightforward. I called up, used the magic phrase "we have no heat," and they said someone would be by to fix it by midnight. Fortunately, it didn't actually take that long; the repairman arrived at 5:30. It was 55 by then. He replaced the ignitor (we seem to go through one of those every two years) and our house was warm again by bedtime.
Today, I intended to go grocery shopping in the morning. I decided to stop by a gift store about a half mile away before going for the actual groceries (Kiera's main request for Christmas was a snow globe, so I want to get her a nice one). When I came out and started the car, the car came on -- I swear to God, the engine was running, I could rev it, THE CAR WAS HONESTLY ON -- but (a) about half the warning lights were lit, including the one for the parking break, which would not shut off when I released the parking break, and (b) the car would not shift out of park. I turned it off, I turned it back on, I let it run for a while as I leafed through the manual trying to figure out what the heck these lights meant (they all meant "take car to dealership immediately"), and finally walked home and called the nearest dealership trying to find out if they were open on Saturdays, if they had service loaners, and if they were going to give me a service loaner if I turned up with my broken minivan. (FTR, this is a one-year-old vehicle with just over 10,000 miles on it, and it was made by Toyota and has a reputation for extreme reliability.)
As it turned out, I did not have to have it towed down to the dealership, as when Ed and I stopped back up there to try again, it turned on and behaved completely normally. Ed's theory, which seemed reasonable, was that the problem was with the electrical system (either that, or I'd somehow neglected to turn on the car, although he assured me that he trusted that I knew when my car was on).
I have never had a car serviced at a dealership before. I've gotten all the recommended scheduled stuff like tire rotations and oil changes, but I take it to a reliable mechanic that's closer to home, rather than driving all the way to the dealership. All the dealerships are in the suburbs and a minimum of a twenty minute drive from my house, if I hit all the lights right and there's no traffic on the highway. The mechanic I go to is five minutes away and I can walk to a nice coffee shop while they change my oil. I wanted to take it to the dealership this time because the car is under warranty, but it was a monumental pain in the butt. Starting with the phone call -- you'd think, "are you open, and can I have a service loaner?" would be fairly straightforward questions, but I got transferred repeatedly and put on hold for agonizingly long periods of time. I finally talked to a guy named Gary. When I arrived and walked into the service department, there were a whole lot of guys there, none wearing name tags, so I went to the one who looked free. This turned out to be Gary, but he didn't tell me this, even though I started out by saying that I'd talked to someone named Gary and giving him a questioning look. He did finally identify himself, but only after I'd re-explained the entire problem. Then someone disappeared with my van before I could get the carseats out, so Gary had to have them bring it back, and that took forever. I don't understand why anyone would use a dealership unless they were getting warranty work done. It was such a hassle.
They said that there was about a 50% chance they'd have time to look at the car today, and then a 50% chance they'd be able to diagnose the issue without a master mechanic, who wouldn't be in until Monday. If they DID finish with it, I'd need to get the loaner back to them by 5:45.
I took the loaner and did my grocery shopping. This grocery store has carts with locking wheels to prevent cart theft. In theory, they're supposed to lock if you take them out of the grocery store parking lot but my wheels locked while I was still in the lot. A very nice random lady offered to watch my groceries while I got my car, and then she helped me load them into it.
Ten minutes after I got home, the dealership called my cell phone (so I missed the call, because it was in my coat pocket) to say that they'd been unable to reproduce the problem and had examined the whole electrical system and found nothing wrong. They also noted that the problems I described -- lights on, car won't shift out of park -- were consistent with the car not actually being on. Which is true. BUT THE CAR WAS ON. I SWEAR TO GOD. Possibly the most frustrating thing about the entire incident is that I know it would make sense if somehow the car wasn't running, and in fact I turned it off and back on a couple of times because it was so bizarre that I didn't trust my own perceptions; I was hearing the hum and feeling the vibration of the car, but maybe, somehow, it wasn't on? because that would explain it. So I would turn it off and back on and the problem would still be there. And yet it was clear the dealership mechanic thought it was operator error.
We had dinner with my parents tonight and Ed said they'd figured out the problem while I was returning the service loaner -- the problem was that I drove the car for less than a mile on an extremely cold day, and that can cause cars to do strange things. So hopefully it was just some weird fluke and will never come up again, and if it does, I guess I will let it sit for another half hour and then try to turn it on again and see if the problem has magically fixed itself.
Can I be done with things breaking now? Please?
It was 10 degrees outside.
We have a service plan with the gas company, so at least this was relatively straightforward. I called up, used the magic phrase "we have no heat," and they said someone would be by to fix it by midnight. Fortunately, it didn't actually take that long; the repairman arrived at 5:30. It was 55 by then. He replaced the ignitor (we seem to go through one of those every two years) and our house was warm again by bedtime.
Today, I intended to go grocery shopping in the morning. I decided to stop by a gift store about a half mile away before going for the actual groceries (Kiera's main request for Christmas was a snow globe, so I want to get her a nice one). When I came out and started the car, the car came on -- I swear to God, the engine was running, I could rev it, THE CAR WAS HONESTLY ON -- but (a) about half the warning lights were lit, including the one for the parking break, which would not shut off when I released the parking break, and (b) the car would not shift out of park. I turned it off, I turned it back on, I let it run for a while as I leafed through the manual trying to figure out what the heck these lights meant (they all meant "take car to dealership immediately"), and finally walked home and called the nearest dealership trying to find out if they were open on Saturdays, if they had service loaners, and if they were going to give me a service loaner if I turned up with my broken minivan. (FTR, this is a one-year-old vehicle with just over 10,000 miles on it, and it was made by Toyota and has a reputation for extreme reliability.)
As it turned out, I did not have to have it towed down to the dealership, as when Ed and I stopped back up there to try again, it turned on and behaved completely normally. Ed's theory, which seemed reasonable, was that the problem was with the electrical system (either that, or I'd somehow neglected to turn on the car, although he assured me that he trusted that I knew when my car was on).
I have never had a car serviced at a dealership before. I've gotten all the recommended scheduled stuff like tire rotations and oil changes, but I take it to a reliable mechanic that's closer to home, rather than driving all the way to the dealership. All the dealerships are in the suburbs and a minimum of a twenty minute drive from my house, if I hit all the lights right and there's no traffic on the highway. The mechanic I go to is five minutes away and I can walk to a nice coffee shop while they change my oil. I wanted to take it to the dealership this time because the car is under warranty, but it was a monumental pain in the butt. Starting with the phone call -- you'd think, "are you open, and can I have a service loaner?" would be fairly straightforward questions, but I got transferred repeatedly and put on hold for agonizingly long periods of time. I finally talked to a guy named Gary. When I arrived and walked into the service department, there were a whole lot of guys there, none wearing name tags, so I went to the one who looked free. This turned out to be Gary, but he didn't tell me this, even though I started out by saying that I'd talked to someone named Gary and giving him a questioning look. He did finally identify himself, but only after I'd re-explained the entire problem. Then someone disappeared with my van before I could get the carseats out, so Gary had to have them bring it back, and that took forever. I don't understand why anyone would use a dealership unless they were getting warranty work done. It was such a hassle.
They said that there was about a 50% chance they'd have time to look at the car today, and then a 50% chance they'd be able to diagnose the issue without a master mechanic, who wouldn't be in until Monday. If they DID finish with it, I'd need to get the loaner back to them by 5:45.
I took the loaner and did my grocery shopping. This grocery store has carts with locking wheels to prevent cart theft. In theory, they're supposed to lock if you take them out of the grocery store parking lot but my wheels locked while I was still in the lot. A very nice random lady offered to watch my groceries while I got my car, and then she helped me load them into it.
Ten minutes after I got home, the dealership called my cell phone (so I missed the call, because it was in my coat pocket) to say that they'd been unable to reproduce the problem and had examined the whole electrical system and found nothing wrong. They also noted that the problems I described -- lights on, car won't shift out of park -- were consistent with the car not actually being on. Which is true. BUT THE CAR WAS ON. I SWEAR TO GOD. Possibly the most frustrating thing about the entire incident is that I know it would make sense if somehow the car wasn't running, and in fact I turned it off and back on a couple of times because it was so bizarre that I didn't trust my own perceptions; I was hearing the hum and feeling the vibration of the car, but maybe, somehow, it wasn't on? because that would explain it. So I would turn it off and back on and the problem would still be there. And yet it was clear the dealership mechanic thought it was operator error.
We had dinner with my parents tonight and Ed said they'd figured out the problem while I was returning the service loaner -- the problem was that I drove the car for less than a mile on an extremely cold day, and that can cause cars to do strange things. So hopefully it was just some weird fluke and will never come up again, and if it does, I guess I will let it sit for another half hour and then try to turn it on again and see if the problem has magically fixed itself.
Can I be done with things breaking now? Please?
