The O'Reilly's I wanted to reach before work that one morning I finally reached Thursday morning after I actually checked the directions. The guy -- with the help of two dudes, both wearing tank tops, who apparently were friends with the O'Reilly's person because they were helping him as all three of them hovered over my open hood -- seemed to know what he was doing, up to and including plugging the company's code reader into the ... what is it called .. the Diagnostic Code Connector, which was located and whose lid was popped open, by the way, by one of these two dudes.
I just stepped away and let him (well, them) do their thing. I've seen people plug things into two different places and another say it goes into a third. I've seen diagnoses of a knock sensor, an air pump, five different things and, in what is the final straw, "I don't know, I can't read the thing."
And that is basically what this guy said, even though he promptly plugged the reader into a place that seemed to make sense and told me to turn off the car before putting the key into the "On" position. Maybe that was the key; the Check Engine light comes on after the car's been driven, but it doesn't come on as soon as I start the engine. Maybe that's why this guy couldn't read anything. So maybe this guy doesn't know what he's doing after all.
He told me to go to the O'Reilly's closer to my house; either it's a sensor, or the code reader he's holding is bad. This O'Reilly's is the one where I stopped by on my way to work one morning, the one whom I kind of told the woman who helped me that she should plug the reader underneath the steering wheel and not to this Diagnostic Code Connector in the engine bay, and the one who said, "I don't know, I can't read the thing." At this point I was tired of getting all these "I don't know" error messages after I kept getting these mixed messages on what's wrong with my car.
But in the meantime, the car's getting worse. After what seemed to be a two-day respite the middle of last week, the Check Engine light has come on, fairly quickly, on any trip of more than five minutes. It was at its worst, I believe, on the drive home from work Thursday, the day of this trip to O'Reilly's in the morning. Once it came on I had a bitch of a time getting my to accelerate. At one point I slammed my foot down but the car would only creep along the road for what seemed like five seconds before I saw the tachometer needle spike all the north as the car finally responded and went, "VROOOOOOOOOOOOM!" as it finally sped up. Probably took some years off my transmission's life, but that just shows that there is something seriously wrong with the car.
By the way, I am both cursed and blessed that my car's current ailment is happening now. I don't like the fact my car's inability to accelerate is happening during afternoon rush, but on the other hand I am fortunate that my drive home is currently a parking lot. I can't accelerate, but I'm not accelerating because there are too many cars in front of me that are stopped. Now if this was, say, late at night on the highway, there would be cars going 70 miles per hour that have to swerve around me to avoid my slow ass.
So since the Check Engine light came on on the way home Thursday afternoon I decided to go to this O'Reilly's close to home for a second time. I was helped by this guy who may or may not have known what he was doing, but he was very nice. I told him my story about the O'Reilly's I went to in the morning, and told him he plugged in that reader underneath the hood. He told me it should be plugged underneath the steering wheel, and I said OK.
I then told him what I learned about reading OBD-I codes while at work Thursday, something I should have done way sooner: To really read Check Engine lights for really old cars, you have to put the car in Neutral, then count the number of times the Check Engine light blinks. That's how it's supposed to go. Weird, huh? After I told him, he said to do it because the code reader told him that had to be done.
So I'm in the driver's seat, car running but in Neutral, and I'm looking at the Check Engine light. It was very strange looking at that damn light finally doing something other than stare at me menacingly. But it was communicating with me: Five blinks, a short pause, then five more blinks, then a long pause. That long pause meant the car was done telling what the problem is. That translates to "55" -- A knock sensor code. And the guy showed me the reader, which said the same thing and more: "55, Knock Sensor - Right-Hand Circuit."
I saw the Check Engine light and the code reader with my own eyes, therefore that has to be it. So The Mechanic Around The Corner, even though they ripped me off, was right, as well as the first O'Reilly's girl who helped me, even though there were four other codes her reader showed me, all of which may have been erased after My Father's Favorite Mechanic cleaned up the engine. And everyone else was wrong. And to those who did and thought that reader had to go underneath the hood ... well, that's what the Internet says it should go to, but again, I saw the code with my own eyes, I think that's right.
So, that's it. The car needs a new knock sensor, right-hand circuit. Hopefully my car will make it to the point where my folks leave on vacation so I can use their minivan to get around, then after my credit card's current billing cycle flips so the charge for what I think will be a very expensive fix can be pushed back a month. Can it? It's acting worse, so we'll see.
Meanwhile, even though I had many of their folks steer me wrong, ultimately I have to thank O'Reilly's. They are the only ones who have a diagnosis tool that can read Check Engine lights from cars older than 1996. AutoZone, CarQuest and (I think) Advance don't seem to have that. That separates these guys from the others when it comes to service, and to being able to help me. So call this a recommendation for O'Reilly's. Thank you!
No comments:
Post a Comment