Tuesday, April 02, 2019

Darn Car

I've had dash warning codes lit up on this car since I bought it.   Three of them began coming on the second day I had it, which caused me anxiety, that I'd thrown away all that money.  The car was my first purchase of value off craigslist.  At first the dash code lights were intermittent in their appearance, but soon they became a constant on the dash.

My brother said to ignore them and laughed it off.   I did, because I had no alternative.  Within the first year of ownership, I'd already had to replace two wheel bearings and front brakes, down to the rotors.

All while trying to paying off the loan I took out from a friend to buy the thing.

This car is not the old catmobile, that went over 300k with barely a problem.  But then I'm the 5th owner of this car.  I knew that could be a problem.  It would not be in such miserable shape if I'd been the original owner.   I think some cars even pumped out of the same plant one after another are not the same. 

I got this particular used car because it was cheaper than any others I found same make (scions get good mileage and the square shape allows me to haul lots of cats in the back). It was close enough (Portland), I thought I might be able to get a ride with someone to go get it.  It was cheaper than others because it was a manual transmission.   People don't want to bother with shifting gears. Even though I'd not driven a manual in two decades or more, I knew it wouldn't bother me.  It was a year newer than the one I'd had before.  I will have owned it two years this June, although I didn't drive it much for two months after I bought it because the title really wasn't clear and because I hurt my knee badly the evening I was to go up to get it. 

I had to pay cash for the car.  This was a little scary, to go to NE Portland with $3600 in cash, most of it borrowed cash, and now in screaming knee pain.  I'd dug crutches out, already in my garage from other injuries, after popping a ligament on the side of my knee, just after my friend arrived to drive me up.  Bravado and Aleve got me through it.  I couldn't test drive it because of my knee and wanted to scream most of the way up and back from ever increasing knee pain.  I had to silence my anxiety of driving a stick shift for the first time in decades with a raging painful knee and just do it.  The woman who drove me up just wanted to get back home and had zero empathy for my predicament of injuring my knee just before we left.  After I got back home, I called a cab and went to the ER.  I could barely walk for months after that.

Over a week ago, the car began hesitating when I was driving it.  RPM's would suddenly drop, like it was going to die, then it would kick in, with a jerk.   I had a bad feeling.  The problem became worse.  I took 7 cats up to the clinic yesterday morning, and on the way back, at a low speed, the car hesitated, then engaged with a violent jerk.  This scared me.

But the old car hesitated too, before serious problems developed, on two occasions.  One time, I was on my way to a Jefferson clinic when it just became impossible to drive, rather suddenly.  This had been preceded by a week of hesitation and bad idling.   I hitchhiked home, had the car towed and it was a bad coil pack.  Years later, same thing, only this time it was one bad spark plug.

So yesterday I went straight to get spark plugs and for good measure I bought one coil pack.  Coil packs are terribly expensive.  One of them cost $80.  I plan to carry it in the car and hope if the car gets really bad and a coil pack is the cause I can figure which of the four is bad by removing the wire from each and listening to the engine.   No change in the engine sound when removing a coil pack connection means you found the bad one.

I took the car for a test drive after changing the  plugs.  I had hoped I would not experience hesitation.  Because I had removed the battery negative connector when I changed the plugs, the dash code lights vanished.   But only for about 15 miles.  Once the car began to heat up, back came the dash lights.  I stopped in at a Lebanon parts store and asked if they could hook up their code reader.  They did.  When they plugged it into their computer, what came up jolted me a bit.  Said the car needed a new catalytic converter or had something going on with it.  But, the two nice young men warned me, a bad cat usually means something dirty is going on with the engine.   I wondered if I'd solved the "dirty" problem by changing the plugs or if something worse was going on.

I just don't know and don't have money to pour into it.  It hesitated once on the short drive to Lebanon.  It was not a long enough drive to really tell if changing the plugs has stopped the hesitation problem.   I spent last night watching youtube videos on exhaust problems, how to check O2 sensors, how to tell if the cat really is working or not, videos of guys trying to clean out cats in various ways, none of which worked (soaking one in Dawn soap overnight; adding lacquer thinner to the gas; soaking in sodium hydroxide).  It was interesting. 

I don't know if my catalytic is bad or not or if it is bad, if its destroyed, i.e. melted ceramic, metals that do the reaction with oxygen to remove unburned fuels gone, don't know.  I don't know if something really wrong in the engine destroyed the cat either.   I don't know much of anything or exactly how to proceed.  Do I just keep on driving it and hope for the best? 

Well I did get seven more cats fixed yesterday.  I sat up in the park Saturday night and caught the little black torti.  Three more cats showed up at the park a couple months ago.    One looked, in the dark and from distance, to be small and black, but I think the torti I caught is that one.  She was pregnant at spay yesterday, even though so young.   At least she won't have kittens in the brush.

I will try to find her a new place to call home.  I'm trying to say goodbye to going up to the park, but now I have to get five cats, well four now, out of there first.

Chipolte the little torti
Old fears haunted my sleep last night.  I live so far from any store. Three miles from a grocery, one way.  I have to have a running car here.   And to continue helping spay neuter cats and taking those here to vet appointments.

I could not find anyone to go get the cats at the clinic for pick up.  I didn't' want to risk it with the car, not with other people's cats. Breaking down along side a busy freeway isn't exactly safe.  Finally I called my elderly Corvallis friend.  She usually doesn't answer but did this time and said she'd take me up to get the cats.  This was a huge relief.  I cancelled appointments for next Monday.  I cancelled an appointment for Wednesday that someone wasn't using, at the coast clinic.  I was going to take Calamity, for dental care, along with two boys who have colds, as walk ins.

The other six cats who went yesterday were easy.  A lady in Lebanon had found two cats as kittens.  One had died, and the other now needed fixed.  So ThatKitty went to be spayed.   They had called the two cats, before the one died, This Kitty and That Kitty.

That Kitty, a lovely sweet brown tabby girl

The other five all came from Brownsville where people moved in to find the house had cats, left behind by former owners.   Three were tame and two were wild.  At first they just brought up the three tame ones, who are beautiful.  I'd given them four traps.  They set the trap for the wilder boy, and caught him and brought him up.   She said her son had seen a tabby.  I handed her another trap and they caught her too, although they didn't know her.  She was pregnant at spay and quite wild so it was good they prevented more kittens being born there in the fields.

Harley, a boy, neutered yesterday.

Topaz, a girl

Tundra, also a girl

Thunder, a boy

Julian, the wild tabby tux they didn't know was there.  I think she is beautiful.

As for the car, I'll figure out a way to get it in to be checked out and drive it until then.  I'll just carry water, food, and a book I guess.  Nothing else I can do but hope for the best.

Darn car anyhow.  But I need it.




10 comments:

  1. Good luck with the car.
    And excellent work as usual despite your difficulties.

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  2. Anonymous5:11 PM

    Fingers crossed for you. I suppose you did check the transmission oil level?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's a manual transmission, Andrew. I have checked motor oil level and changed the oil routinely. I have been a little worried that it goes dirty so fast though, the motor oil.

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  3. Good luck with your car. We have a an old Toyota van that is doing the same thing. We had the luxury of being able to afford to take it both to our regular mechanic and the dealer, both of which, could not figure out what the problem was. We got another car because we were afraid to take it on the long trips we were doing to visit my mother. We still use it locally and it seems to work despite its surging. I hope your car continues to do well for you and that clean spark plugs will do the trick.

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    Replies
    1. That makes me a little nervous to know a mechanic could not find the problem, LandL. My brother told me to keep driving it but only around town, which extremely limits my world. And ends my spay neuter efforts. I probably won't listen because I don't want my world to be this little town.

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    2. I looked up surging causes on Toyotaw. Four things were listed: bad fuel pump, bad mass air flow valve; bad throttle position sensor; and bad fuel injectors or their wires. Hesitation is what my car is experiencing. The possible causes listed are bad spark plugs, bad coil packs, bad throttle position sensor; clogged fuel filter, weak starter system, bad mass air flow valve.

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    3. Thanks for the Toyota information. I think all of those things were checked to no avail. As I said, we don't drive more than 1/2 hour from home, so if it breaks down, we should be able to manage. At least better than if we were on a trip.

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  4. Sending prayers your way!

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