Killing Four Birds With Three Stones
2/4/2
Let�s talk about cars, bay-bee. Let�s talk about you and me...and I don�t know any more lyrics to mess with, and everyone�s glad.
First, let�s talk about my car. The Kronos was in a bad way. The suspension needed some maintenance and how. It was out of alignment on the rear passenger side and had balded the outside of the tire. The rear driver side had it�s brakes messed up so that when I�d brake at speed it would go shuff shuff shuff. And of course, too much loss of traction under heavy acceleration, which rarely happened, and the tires that weren�t that messed up one were very tread challenged.
$500 for an alignment, full brakes, and some Kuhmo 735 Touring Plus [or something like that]. And lo and behold, the stones, they killed one more bird.
It had also been having an overheating problem. If it sat in traffic, which thankfully I don�t do usually, it would get hotter and hotter. I�ve taken very long ways home because I knew the traffic on one stretch would make me have to sit for about seven minutes, and I didn�t want to see the car get into the red.
Sitting, that was what was doing it. So, my natural assumption is that the sender [they don�t call it a sensor] for the temperature to turn on the electric fan was messed up, or the fan was. Nope, the fan ran. I even though it was a logical error on the car�s part. Rather than:
If [�car is hot� or �AC is on�] then turn on fan
It was...
If [�car is hot�] then turn fan on
If [�AC is on�] then turn fan on
If [�car is hot� and �AC is on�] then turn fan off
I know it looks goofy, but it made perfect sense. I think...
In any case, I get my car back from Topline Tires, the one with the goofy commercial, and when I accelerate hard getting onto the Parkway, I get a red flashing light on the dash.
The symbol on the dash could be read in the following ways: �Water level low and temperature low too� or �Water temperature low� or �Water, which is, like, related to temperature, is low�.
The car stayed cool and never overheated. Heck, it never got up to halfway on the temp gauge. And the light would only light under some good G forces. Heavy acceleration and also when I did the Parkway north to 565 west cloverleaf at 50 mph with the cruise control on [and Aisai in the car... �I don�t feel comfortable with this.�] was what seemed to trigger it.
Well, you know, why not add some water. I got one of those big 32+ oz tumbler/buckets that we fed food to the animals at that wild animal park in Louisiana with and filled the little thing on the side. The Kronos doesn�t have a top to its radiator, or at least no opening to it. They did that just to mess with me.
And sure enough, everything is fine.
My guess as to what happened? There was a wire/sensor[sender, dur] loose and the Topline Guys saw it and reconnected it. They may have thought they disconnected it. Once back to normal, the car was able to tell me that the water was low, and it also did whatever magic it took to keep the car cool. With the extra water, the car didn�t have the red light come on anymore.
So, you�re thinking the Kronos is a pleasure to drive again, right? Well, yes and no. I can feel that the bearings in the front driver wheel are going. Not horrible to drive, but I know that�s more money to pour into this car which, granted, I do like, but it�s so crude.
Aisai is getting a new car. I�m slowly persuading her not to get a Saturn again. The flavors of the week are the 1995 Mazda 626 ES [150-160 hp, less than 3000 lbs, based on the 1993 MX-6 platform] and the 1995 Nissan Altima GXE [Uh, I think 150 hp again, also less than 3000 lbs, and you don�t have to worry about what trim line really, since Nissan put the good engine in them all.] We just need to find one locally so we can take it by Clark�s for them to check it out.
If it wasn�t for Clark�s, I�d be driving some money pit Mazda MX-3 V6 since...hey...it seemed OK. But then I took it in, it ended up the current owner had never done any [any any] maintenance besides changing the oil. It needed $1300 in repairs and they said that was just the beginning. The man had killed the future of his car.
The Kronos will get an oil change tomorrow and the dealer always washes it. I need to clean out the inside. It�s so shameful when they take the old receipts and junk and organize it in the car after they�ve cleaned. They always have a neat little stack of receipts they found on the floorboard sitting on the passenger seat.