I
finally had a motor vehicle case to blog about that might help someone. Two
weeks ago in the morning a young woman in her late twenties drove in
a 2010 Ford Explorer. I went to greet her from the back room, where the sequel
to Rick Cantelli, P.I. was in production on my laptop. The woman popped out of
the driver’s side, and marched up in my face. I had halted to see where she was
going. I will refer to her as Ellie Explorer for the blog. Ellie stopped before
she ran me over, with folded arms over chest stare.
“Good
morning. Can I help you?” I tried pleasant.
Ellie
pointed at the Explorer. “Can you fix this or not?!”
Uh
oh. Since I had never seen her or the Explorer before, I assumed that was a
rhetorical question. I’ve had customers come in angry and ask if I could fix
something, but they usually don’t tack on ‘or not’. “I do work on Ford
Explorers. Perhaps if I…”
“I’ve
had three shops work on this already!” Ellie jabs her finger at the recalcitrant
Explorer. “I want to know if you can fix it! I don’t want to pay again to have
it worked on without it being fixed!”
This
is where being an old geezer helps. I took on my stern, no nonsense look, since
my pleasant face was getting me abused. “First off, young lady, let’s use our
inside voices. I can understand you being upset if you’ve paid to have your
Explorer fixed at three shops without success, but if you plan on taking it out
on me, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“Sorry…”
Ellie went back into folded arms position with a more resigned look. “I don’t
know what to do with this thing. I took it to Ford first. They nicked me for a
$125, did their computer scan, cleared the codes, and test drove it. The codes
didn’t reappear, so they gave it back to me. A day later it jerked on the
freeway, and the check engine light came back on. Ford agreed to retest it,
which they did. They gave it back to me, saying it was an intermittent problem, but
they installed an updated TPS sensor under warranty. They had already changed
the throttle body the first year I had it under warranty. A week later, the
light was back on.”
Ellie
paused waiting for me to say something. “Okay, did you have Ford retest it?”
“No,
I took it downtown to an electronics shop (she named the place, but I was
unfamiliar with it) because I was worried I’d get stuck out in the middle of
nowhere. I drive this up in the mountains all the time, especially during ski
season. I showed the guy over there my invoices from Ford after he came up with
the same two codes Ford did, having to do with the throttle. That stopped him,
because he had been about to recommend replacing the throttle and TPS sensor.
They tried rerouting the harness from those… ah… coil on plug things, thinking
maybe there was interference causing it. That didn’t work and I was out another
$110. The electronics shop looked at it again, and thought maybe the computer
needed reflashed, but I showed them the Ford invoice where they updated the
TPS, and pointed out that Ford had done a reflash. He said this may be a case
where the problem will have to get more consistent. Jesus… I mean… with all the
gadgets you people have, why can’t they tell you what’s wrong?”
I
didn’t have an answer for her on that, but I did know it happens occasionally. “You
took it to a third shop. What did they do?”
“They
didn’t charge me for the computer scan. When they looked over my other work,
and the fact I already had over 80,000 miles on it, they suggested doing a
complete maintenance tune up, including replacing the coil on plug things. They
were honest about not knowing if it would solve the problem or not, but that I
was nearing the time when it would need to be done anyway. That made sense,
because they said it might be a misfire the computer wasn’t detecting causing
feedback into the throttle sensor circuit. I gave them the go ahead on the damn
expensive maintenance tune up and the light came back on three days later. It
did seem to start and run better though. That shop rescanned it for free, and
told me the same thing as the second shop – wait for the problem to get worse.”
Oh
boy. I looked longingly at the backroom where my laptop awaited with Rick
Cantelli and his fictional adventures calling to me. My publishing partner
and agent, RJ Parker, keeps telling me I have to give up the ‘Bennie’ work, and
concentrate on writing exclusively. (Bennie is my humorous name when the r on
my nametag gets smudged into an n I have written about) I pointed out to him
when I finish the Rick Cantelli sequel, I’ll have written six full length
novels this year, and still kept my day job. Ellie and her Explorer were making
‘Bennie’ think maybe it was time to start considering it though. Maybe like my
fictional Cantelli, a good deed would be just the thing here to improve the
karma of ‘Bennie’ work.
I
took a deep breath. “I’ll tell you what. Leave it with me. I’ll look it over
and if I can’t find anything there will be no charge. If I do find something
related to the codes I believe will fix it, I’ll charge you my $75 diagnostic
fee plus the cost of the fix, which I will get your okay on the repair first
over the phone. I’ll give you a six month money back warranty on the code
problem. I want you to understand the warranty will not have anything to do
with other problems that crop up. Since you’ve never gone more than a week
without the codes coming back, we should know quickly whether it’s fixed. That’s
the best I can do.”
She
thought about it while staring death rays at me, trying to see if I’d break
down and start blubbering. When I didn’t, she handed me her keys. “I’ll call
for a ride. I hope you can fix it.”
Me
too.
After
she left, I set up my laptop computer used only for ‘Bennie’ business with the
latest programming and diagnostic software on it. I came up with the same old
codes of P2104 (Forced Idle) and P2111 (Throttle Stuck Open). There were no
indicators of fuel or misfires in the digital data. I took it through the more
specific Mode 6 testing, and only came up with fails having to do with the
throttle. There were no indicators of misfire. At that moment, the ‘Bennie’
retirement song was playing in my head (Bennie and the Jets). :)
I
opened the hood then with my CSI mini Maglite, looking for clues rather than
DNA samples. A half hour later, going over grounds, power leads, and problem
areas for wiring harness I had read about and found on Expeditions and other
Fords, I found the problem. The harness was chaffed by the EGR (Exhaust Gas
Recirculation) tube and valve. It was tiny, but allowing what I found out was a
TPS signal wire to contact ground intermittently. I repaired the wiring, and
rerouted the harness. I only charged her the diagnostic fee, but she warned me
she’d be back in days with the same thing wrong. I didn’t blame her for thinking that, but I had
the guarantee written on the invoice.
She
called this morning after two weeks and two trips to the mountains. It looks
like ‘Bennie’ is back in business.
I
will be at 60,000 words for the Rick Cantelli sequel by Halloween also. :)
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