Oh, I haven't told you guys what I decided to do with the repairs on the car. The reason for the Check Engine light, according to The Mechanic Around The Corner, is a bad fuel injector. That's the same reason the light came on the last time, when I was working the late shift at Macy's over the holidays a couple years ago. However, this one apparently is, for lack of a better term, tucked under the engine, which apparently is special from all the other engines out there because it's put into my car sideways and therefore this and another fuel injector is hidden all the way inside the guts of my car.
Guess here is their tests told them that it was that fuel injector that was bad, and so in order to get to it they had to, apparently, haul out my whole engine out of my car. Turns out that's a good thing, because they had thought for a long time that there were huge leaks in the back of my engine and they now had a reason to investigate just what the hell is going on back there. That's when they confirmed suspicions they've told me over the years, namely that there are those three gaskets in the very center of my hood that are leaking both oil and coolant.
The sway bar and the fuel injector (which, by the way, was leaking gas, which, according to them, is the reason I smell gas fumes when I turn on the exterior setting on the fan) are the first priorities to fix, and fix immediately; that, changing the taillights (which I insist again have already been fixed by me and therefore I don't know if they're either screwing up or ripping me off) and changing the oil are the repairs I had no problem okaying. All of that runs me about $900. But now the gaskets. I really shouldn't fix them on a car that's into its third decade of life. But goddammit, I love that car. These things have been leaking significantly for a long time, and it's time I did something about it. Besides, I'm working nowadays, like a dog with two jobs the past two weeks, so I've got the money to absorb the charge.
So I asked the guy at the car shop if he could give me a rank, one of the gaskets that should be fixed first. He said the intake manifold, if only because that's the one that's leaking both oil and coolant. OK, I said, how much? More than $700. Wow ... but, OK.
The next thing he said gave me pause, however. The engine is out of its housing (or "plenum," whatever that is) at this point, so not only can they replace the intake manifold gasket now but they can reach the valve cover gasket, too. It would save me money if I get the valve cover gasket fixed at the same time as the intake manifold gasket. That particular gasket would set me back $270 (before tax, I think) as opposed to $500 if they had to take the whole engine out again just to fix that. However, giving the go-ahead to that would boost the total of the car repair to just about ... ahem ... $2,000. The car isn't worth half that in Kelly's Blue Book, and I've already committed to more than $1,600 with the intake manifold gasket.
I was having this entire conversation on the phone -- let alone my internal debate with myself in my head -- while driving. I know that's a no-no, but I was running behind, and by the time I parked and had to end the call I was about a minute late. I had to start this phone call while getting to my night test scoring job, so I was kind of rushed, and I decided that I had to stop the total charges, for this go-round, at more than $1,600. The only thing popped into my head during this phone call is the fact that I spent either $1,700 or $1,900 on getting my transmission overhauled/replaced (along with a new left C/V joint), and I could not stomach paying more than that for a litany of fixes both unusual and mundane. If the valve cover gasket is leaking so much oil I have to attend to it, I'll do it later and take the extra $230 hit. But no, not now, not while I have to charge my credit card for restabilizing my sway bar and getting a new fuel injector, I just couldn't do it. (By the way, the third gasket, the oil pan gasket, is, at least according to The Mechanic Around The Corner, the most expensive of the three gasket leaks to patch up. Wonder why; aren't the expenses for the valve cover and intake manifold gaskets so high because of the labor needed to essentially do a reach-around on the engine? He didn't say he needed to yank the engine out to fix the oil pan gasket.)
I agonized over that decision, all through work that evening and in bed that night. I gave myself till mid-afternoon in case I wanted to give them a call and also OK the valve cover gasket fix. But in the end I realized that my credit card only has a $3,000 limit. I thought I would be alright if I charged $2,000 for the repairs on Saturday, which falls under the very first days of my next billing cycle, but you never know when there are surprises that will eat up the one grand balance. For example, I'm thinking about buying boutique chocolates not once but twice for the guys at work. I can't a situation where my credit card wouldn't be accepted because I maxed it out. I'll deal with the waste of getting my engine hauled out twice later. Who knows, maybe the other fuel injector will give out, or there's another leak back there that needs to be attended to, and then I won't have to feel like I'm throwing money away for taking out the "plenum" for just one stupid thing.
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I'm okayed the repairs Tuesday evening. Wednesday evening I returned their call. They said they could not rotate the tires because they don't have my wheel lock, but it didn't matter because it looks like to them the treads on all four tires are even. (Also, they didn't see any punctures or bad seals on my front left tire; they just put air into all of them. They'd better be right.) But beyond that, they're done. They're done?? I give the go-ahead to almost $1,700 in repairs, and I'm led to believe there's a lot of elbow grease to get all this crap repaired, and you guys are done in less than a day? I kind of feel cheated. If I'm paying mid-to-upper four figures on my car, you should at least baby my car for three days. I'll take two.
Instead it's been good-to-go (well, besides those two bad gaskets) since Wednesday night. Because of my two jobs, I told them (when I brought my car in) that I wouldn't be able to pick it up until Saturday.
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There is one positive note I should not here. I was able to stick gorilla tape to the flapping end of my passenger-side bottom weatherstripping. It's totally ghetto, and it could all peel away the first time I get the car washed, but for the past few weeks I haven't see it dragging on the ground, nor have I heard it flapping outside the car while I'm driving like Zorro's whip. So that's one repair I was able to do!
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