Steverino
02-10-2011, 05:55 PM
the cars break down. WTF!
This past weekend my daughter's car acts up. No problem, I have the tools, the weather's good. Fixed!
Now a cold front comes blasting through, rain, cold and windy, and the wife's Tacoma decides to act up.
She leaves for work about 15 mins ahead of me (6am), so as I'm getting ready to go, I hear her truck come limping back into the driveway. She comes in, flustered, nearly in tears, says it started running like crap and it barely got her back before it died completely. At least the Tacoma did actually get her back home. I gave her the keys to my Cobalt, sent her off and called my work, left a message I'd be late.
I do the normal checks, guess what, same damn problem as my daughter's car, no alternator voltage at the battery. Shit! It's 35F outside (yeah I know, that's not cold) so I get to work and yank the alt, take it to O'Reilly and get them to bench test it. It tests Ok, now what? The guy says, "did you check the fuse?" What fuse? :mad: I work on American cars, they don't have no stinkin' fuse in the charging circuitry! :mad: Well, Toyota does. An 80A fuse.
I had to put that damn alternator back in and replace the fuse. Now I'm 3 1/2 hours late for work. :facepalm:
The upside is I dodged a $130.00 rebuilt alternator and now I know how to yank it next time. :facepalm::facepalm:
This past weekend my daughter's car acts up. No problem, I have the tools, the weather's good. Fixed!
Now a cold front comes blasting through, rain, cold and windy, and the wife's Tacoma decides to act up.
She leaves for work about 15 mins ahead of me (6am), so as I'm getting ready to go, I hear her truck come limping back into the driveway. She comes in, flustered, nearly in tears, says it started running like crap and it barely got her back before it died completely. At least the Tacoma did actually get her back home. I gave her the keys to my Cobalt, sent her off and called my work, left a message I'd be late.
I do the normal checks, guess what, same damn problem as my daughter's car, no alternator voltage at the battery. Shit! It's 35F outside (yeah I know, that's not cold) so I get to work and yank the alt, take it to O'Reilly and get them to bench test it. It tests Ok, now what? The guy says, "did you check the fuse?" What fuse? :mad: I work on American cars, they don't have no stinkin' fuse in the charging circuitry! :mad: Well, Toyota does. An 80A fuse.
I had to put that damn alternator back in and replace the fuse. Now I'm 3 1/2 hours late for work. :facepalm:
The upside is I dodged a $130.00 rebuilt alternator and now I know how to yank it next time. :facepalm::facepalm: