Remember when I talked about a Sunday where I was so proud of myself for finally being able to open up my car's tail light assembly, only to not be able to change the tail light bulb that was shorted out? The day before my trip to Kansas City I took it into the mechanic I know trust to have them check it out while getting my oil changed and checking out another leak coming out from the bottom of the car.
I came back after my wasted trip around the University of Minnesota. Everything checked out with the car (no big new problems I was not aware of), and he degreased the underside to be able to see where the leak (which he believes is with the power steering, not the oil) is actually coming from when I have it brought in the next time I get an oil change. As for the tail light, a co-worker of the guy who I usually talk to was working on it. They both said they fixed it. I had my suspicions so I looked at it further. I told him I tried changing it myself and even gave them the bulb I thought was bad but kept just in case.
And then it dawned on me: I replaced the wrong bulb. There are three in each housing; when you see the tail lights, it's in a triangle shape, with one on top and two on the bottom. The left-bottom one is the one that was constantly shorting out. I made sure that I know that I was fixing that one and not replacing one of the two good bulbs. But apparently I was, because the one bulb whose socket this guy was taking out and putting back in was not the socket I was working on. But it worked because the tail light warning light on my dashboard turned off, and it's been off ever since.
So basically I asked them to fix something I could have done myself if I knew which bulb was the bulb that wasn't working. What I hate most of all is that it didn't even occur to me to try another socket because I just knew it was that bulb that was broken. Oh well, I'm glad these guys didn't charge me for changing it.
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