Car – Noise Ave.

It’s the DEGAS Tank!

So WTH is a degas tank? They said it holds coolant for the engine when the engine is turned off. And that where the engine uses it from when it needs coolant…. Sure, whatever to the explanation.

I have a question!

“Could I install a horse under the hood?” I just needs pulling. The car is getting so complicated! What happend to the good old days of 20 wires and a motor. Now, it’s a computer this and computer that!

Anyhoo, the oil change is done. Check! The tire rotation done. Check! The clutch issue while releasing is kind of still noticeable. Less now but still. Maybe I’ve adjusted to the crappy road of Kaliforney by now. Or maybe the issue was with an oil change. Although, it makes me cringe to think something was wrong due to an overdue oil change. I only went 3500 miles (but with a long trip on the same oil). I’ve never gone over 3000 much before. maybe less than 100 miles. Normally around 2900, I’m there to get things worked on.

One other possibility is the CV joints. Maybe one of teh boots cracked and leaked enough grease…. This could be visually inspected as well. Next time, I’m at the dealership, I will ask them to run a check. For now, its seems it’s fine to punch the car, push it, drive long drives, etc.

Your Water Pump is Going Bad

“Your water pump is leaking!,” he said interrupting my thoughts as I intently listened to Obama and McCain on the TV saying the other was a liar. Yeah, right! Politicians? Liars? Can’t be!

But I digress. 28K miles on a 2 year old mustang. It was just there for an oil change and tire rotation. But they do more inspection as well. It’s “The Works” package, after all! Back to the story, first there was an issue with the transmission 8K miles into it or so. Don’t remeber the exact mileage.

Anyway, it’s under warranty. They’ll fix it for free. But a thought occurred to me last night. That’s right folks, I do all the important thinking at night. Anyhoo, the thought was that maybe they see people with cars under warranty and tell them to replace stuff. What does the owner care! They are happy it will be fixed for free. And maybe the dealership tags on other things and presents back to Ford to get more money. At home, I know the sales people and feel better trusting them. Out here, on the road any random dealership sounds like a vulture. So I drove to another dealership to have them do the water pump test (for free since it’s under warranty). They’d take 3-4 hours just to run the test and didn’t have a shuttle to drive customers back. Neither a loaner. Only a Hertz desk. Sure it’s under warranty but you don’t really wanna get things done for free!

Drove back to the first dealer and gave the car to them for replacing the water pump. Even if it does need replacing better to replace it now than wait. “The motor could blow,” he said, if it wasn’t fixed. Ok Mr., sign me up for this water pump change program!

Why Would You Do That?

On Friday when I starting driving around town I noticed the gas cap warning light came on. That was a little unsettling. At the next gas station when I stopped to check the cap was completely unscrewed. Mustangs don’t have a lock on the gas door or the cap. So anyone can open the cap.

Well, I always screw the cap in tightly after filling so the only other options is that someone on the street opened the cap. But gas was still at the level that it should have been. No gas missing. So why would someone do that? I guess there’s a small possibility that I may have left it undone. But that’s just so uncharacteristically me that I have a big issue believing that.

Anyway, took it to Ford. They said after tightening the gas cap, it would take 60-80 miles and 3-5 restarts before the light goes away. Today driving back from the Church, the light finally went away. It was a relief, but still a somewhat troubling thought that possibly someone might be opening the gas cap….

Leaving Phoenix Towards Redlands

The last leg of the Trip was on Aug. 11th. It was also the one with least amount of hassle. I guess it was because a conclusion was in sight. However, by the end of the day there was a big headache…. All that driving and sunlight. Plus on that day I was wearing contacts thinking that wearing glasses on the previous two trips possibly contributed to the headache on the previous day. That was an incorrect assumption.

Oh well, from Phoenix to the California border there were few pictures worth posting.

The pictures are in the grid, then notes at the bottom.

1 - Goodyear? Tires?	2 - To Yuma
3 - Nuciler Power!	4 - Little Fun
5 - Open Road	6 - US Inspection Station
7 - Inspection Station

1 – Do they make the tires in this place or they’re just using the name?

2 – Only importance was the movie 3:10 to Yuma.

3 – They misspelled Nuciler. Where’s Homer!

4 – Little fun on the way. Couldn’t max it out ‘coz the road had a bend and the I-10W was just too bumpy to try to go faster.

5 – The open road.

6 – Inspection Station.

7 – So the inspection station is actually the California border. California welcomes you believing you’re a criminal. Arizona welcomes people on a highway, open road, come one come all, but California thinks people should be first inspected.