After work on Monday, I got in my car and started it up – and the check engine light came on. \u00a0I guess that told me that I was done with the drive cycle. \u00a0 So, I took it directly to the mechanic and he looked at it for a bit, but then told me to come back the next day so that could work on it more. \u00a0I left, feeling cranky. \u00a0Or… more cranky than usual.<\/p>\n
Today, I went into work and left at 11:00 to get the car looked at it again. \u00a0I took myself for a walk and got something to eat – then settled in for a wait. \u00a0 Around 2 o’clock they finally gave up – the diagnostics were not matching the physical evidence. \u00a0My car is apparently very stupid. \u00a0 Which I knew.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, he didn’t charge me. \u00a0Which was pleasantly surprising. \u00a0 Armed with the vague idea of a waiver and receipt from the last time my car was looked at, I went back to the echeck after work.<\/p>\n
The first guy I talked to looked at the receipt and said that it should be fine but that I would need to talk to his manager. \u00a0 He then vanished – to be replaced by a guy who said my car had no data and I would need to drive it around and get it fixed. \u00a0I told him that I had already done that and had a\u00a0receipt\u00a0for repairs that didn’t fix the problem. \u00a0He was surprised at this revelation and left. \u00a0From the other end of the repair area, another technician told me that my car had failed the test. \u00a0I explained to her what was going and the second guy came back and they directed me to park my car and go into the office. \u00a0It’s now 4:45 and I have a feeling that the office closes at 5.<\/p>\n
I park my car, hurry in, and wait for the manager to see me. \u00a0She looks at the receipt, says this should be okay, but that she would need for me to pop the hood so she could take a look. \u00a0So, we go out to my car, I pop the hood and she looks around in there, then pronounces it good and we go back inside for her to print out the waiver.<\/p>\n
Now, the mechanic only replaced the fuel pressure sensor – which rests on top of the fuel tank. \u00a0By looking under the hood, she was nowhere near the actual repair. \u00a0 But I didn’t tell her that. \u00a0Frankly, if she whipped out a car of pink spray paint and said she needed to paint a Hello Kitty logo on my hood before she could give me the waiver, I would have offered to shake the can for her.<\/p>\n
So, waiver in hand, I head over to the BMV – which is still open. \u00a0I wait in line for about a minute, then get called to the desk. \u00a0She takes the paperwork, has me sign a form, updates my address and hands me the sticker for my registration. \u00a0I was almost in disbelief that it came down to this. \u00a0I asked her if there was anything else and she said I was done. \u00a0I walked out of there feeling like I’d just gotten a golden ticket and was headed for the chocolate factory.<\/p>\n
I put the sticker on my car tonight and breathed a deep sigh of relief. \u00a0All that hassle and effort for a tiny sticker. \u00a0And it wasn’t even scratch and sniff. \u00a0If it was, I’m pretty sure it would smell like victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After work on Monday, I got in my car and started it up – and the check engine light came on. \u00a0I guess that told me that I was done with the drive cycle. \u00a0 So, I took it directly to the mechanic and he looked at it for a bit, but then told me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1023,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022\/revisions\/1023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}