Thursday, June 16, 2011

The cost of staying mobile

ihopjune16
I’m blogging over breakfast at IHOP while the guys across the street at Gateway Tire work on our Subaru.
The car sounded like the battery was near death when I started it this morning. The battery terminals have a lot of corrosion on them, so I’m hoping a good cleaning will fix the problem, but I’m also bracing myself for the need to buy a new battery. We repaired the Subaru’s air conditioning just last week.
The A/C failed on the del Sol last week too, which required a new compressor. Maria picked up the del Sol from the repair shop this morning and drove it on to work while I took the Subaru down to Gateway.
Hot weather finds weaknesses in cars and makes them fail and we’ve had weeks of highs in the 90s lately with no end in sight. I was reminded of the way heat kills cars last July as I rode past dozens of stranded motorists along I-15 in the Mojave Desert.
So it’s no huge surprise when automotive systems fail in this absurdly hot late spring (yes, summer doesn’t begin until next Tuesday) in the Mid-South.
LATER: It was a dying battery. I think it was the original battery, which means it's been cranking that car for a long time and we got our money's worth from it.

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