I Hate Cars
 

Power steering was on the fritz (hi fritz!) last night, I was planning on taking it in today.

Whelp, instead I get in my car this morning to find that it's SO locked up, I can't even steer the thing out of the parking lot. Fluid is totally dry, and I'm guessing the pump is shot, as it's making some absolutely thrilling noises. Hopefully it's as "simple" as that.

Kind hearted coworker picked me up, and my mechanic friend is hopefully free to check out ze car this evening, otherwise I pretty much have to get it towed and pay a zillion dollars at a repair shop.

FUN!

Cars suck.

That's why I'm into computers.

(not like they are much better)

As baffling as I find auto maintenance, it's still easier than girls.

I spent 2 hours trying to put a serpentine belt on our car. The diagram was so lousy, that it took me forever to decode it. And then i couldn't get the tensioner to release, making it impossible to get the belt over that last hump. Shitty night, guess i have to have it towed in and fixed today, instead of fixing it myself for 20 bucks.

The bolded words, in their context, have no meaning to me.

In Driver's ED we took a 50 question multiple choice test on how a car works. Each question had 4 answers. I got 11 right. Law of averages on such an exam would dictate that I should have at least got 25% (11.5) of the questions right by purely guessing. My knowledge of how a car works is worse than pure guessing. A monkey would likely have received a better score.

I'm no real expert.

Serpentine belt is the belt that runs from the alternator to the power steering pump to the air conditioner, and a couple other things. It's huge as hell, and has a pretty complicated way to be put on, like a line at disneyworld or something.

There are various tension pulleys in the belt pathway that are supposed to release just enough to let you slip the belt onto the last one of them. Since i couldn't get this to work, I couldnt get the belt completely on. I suppose I may try to take off the alternator and that would free up enough slack for the belt, but I think my wife may have already called someone to tow and fix it.

Hrmm... While I've heard of an "alternator", I don't know what it does, what it looks like, or where to find it. I understand the concept of "power steering", but didn't know there was a pump involved. Air conditioner, I get.

Tension pulleys sound confusing and like something out of Super Mario Bros.

My lack of automotive knowledge (or any kind of mechanical/electrical knowledge for that matter) is a significant weakness of mine if there ever was an apocalypse. That and the whole contact lenses thing. They concern me.

Right there with ya bud.

Holy shit, there's someone out who actually knows less about cars than me! :eek:

I have a new found respect for H_B, because I know about as much as he does for cars :)

Trust me, you're not alone. The only reason I NOW know what I know about power steering is from calling my father and asking him.

Most of my family are mechanics. I still have shockingly little knowledge about how cars operate :(

Yeah, damn that Ric Ocasek. Damn him to hell!

Yes. Still, after all these years, I can't believe he married Paulina Porizkova. It's the old wounds. . .

Damn, dude, you stole my post.

Paulina was/is a freakin' goddess...

Mmmm, Paulina.

But speaking of Cars, what about Gary Newman?

He's gonna drive me home tonight.

Do you mean Paul Newman, or Gary Numan?

Yeah, but how many of them can say what the treatment is for plantar fascitis?

150 for the serpentine belt and a new Tensioner pully, installed. I love coming up with that on what i make.

Talk about conspiracies. I remember when I was back in high school, mid-70s, I did most of the maintenance on my 68 Mustang, including tune-ups (plugs, points, timing belt). Now, unless you have a quarter of a million dollars worth of computerized equipment, you can screw your car up beyond belief trying to do just minor things. About the only thing you can do these days unassisted is change the oil and add fluids.

I was following a college prep curriculum in high school, but my dad thought I should have the experience of taking shop classes, too. So I took auto shop in summer school one year. Basically, what it taught me was that I don't like working on cars.

Good point. Still when things break on the car or around the house, I wish I had their knowledge set. :)

150 to change a tensioner and pulley? Thats a 30 minute job on the cars I have done it on.

Yeah, I couldn't get the tensioner pulley to move, I really wish i could have done it. A new one of those is about 35, a new belt is 20. Of course they double those prices at the shop bringing it to 110, plus added about 30 in labor plus tax.

Ok, just to feel superior for a little bit, I'll answer some of these items, or more specifically, describe them, for you car-challenged individuals:

(AKA: I hate knowing the people I consider friends and comrades are ingorant of anything, so here is some general info)


Power steering: Uses a hydraulic pump with a set of pistons and gearing to assist you in making the wheels turn. If you let the power steering fluid get too low you will hear the pump screeching whenever you turn the wheel, and constantly if you let it get too far gone. The car can be driven without power steering, you just need to disconnect the hydraulic lines from the pump to the sterring unit. The car will feel like it weighs 100000lbs when you try to turn it, but its only a real problem at low speeds, such as in parking lots or making tight slow speed turns.

Serpentine belts are a fairly modern creation which uses a single drive belt to run the alternator, power steering pump, AC compressor and other possible accessories attached to the engine. The more things running on one of these belts, the worse efficiency you're getting from your engine as it steals engine power to run these other items.

Tensioner pulley: a free spinning pulley attached to a heavily sprung bolt mechanism. The belt is installed and then the pulley is pulled as tight as possible to exert tension on the belt(s), then the locking bolt is tightened to maintain this tension on the belt(s) to ensure proper operation of your motor accesories.

Alternator: A small electrical generator used to power the electrical items in the engine and the entire car during operation as well as to keep the battery charged fully. The only time you should need your battery is for long idle periods and startup. Once the engine is running the alternator SHOULD generate enough power to handle everything.



For the tensioner not realeasing problem: Spray the locking bolt and the tensioner pullery mechanism with penatrating oil (WD-40 or like product) let them sit for 30 minutes and use a pry/crow bar as leverage against the engine block to pull the tensioner pulley into a position where you can loop the belt over it, then SLOWLY release the pulley so as not to snap the newly installed belt.

Depends on just how far you've let it go, if its relatively a new infection a topical anti-bacterial will generally help kill it off along with keeping the area VERY dry, however, if you let it grow and bore its way into your foot you'll need medication and possibly surgery to remove it entirely.

It had been making a whistling noise the past several weeks, so unfortunately that was also a problem.