Minivan Recovered
Jun. 27th, 2015 08:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevin_standleeMy mechanic was able to get the Astro back to me yesterday evening, and just barely in time (minutes before they closed at 6 PM) for me to return the rental car then, instead of having to do it this morning. (This saves me some back-and-forth this morning; the rental was actually due back at 9 AM Saturday, but now I don't have to worry about it.)
Cory replaced the vacuum lines, complimented Lisa for her field repairs (particularly how she improvised a solution to the annoying case where the two ends of the line had to be different sizes), and re-tuned the engine. He wasn't able to reproduce the problem of the van not wanting to restart (sometimes) when hot, but I'm not terribly surprised by this because it first showed up after we drove from Fernley to Winnemucca, which is a multi-hour drive at full freeway speed, and there's not much of a way for him to simulate that. I'm not asking him to drive the minivan to Fresno and back or something like that!
Still, we'll see how it works out. The re-tuning already sounds better, as the van had in fact been idling too fast (an over-reaction to how it had been stalling at low speeds before). I'm not planning on babying it today as I drive first to Yuba City to visit my mother and sister, then home to Fernley. I need to know how it will react in normal driving conditions, not with me applying extra TLC all the time.
After dropping the rental car, I walked back to Cory's shop and re-installed the central console that Lisa built to house the radios (and incidentally some cup-holders). As I was finishing up, Cory came back from a test drive of another vehicle on which he was working, and we talked about how the repairs went. He'd like me to bring the van back to him after the San Diego trip because he has some ideas about what may be troubling it that he'd like to try out without the immediate and acute problems with which he's been working. I agreed that I'd give him a call when I get back from San Diego, and asked him how much I owed him for this round of work.
"Don't worry about it," he said.
"You sure?" I asked, and he confirmed it.
Times like this are to be remembered when people ask why I go to so much trouble to bring my vehicle back to this Fremont mechanic if it's possible to do so, even though it's often logistically hasslesome and costs me more overall.
Cory replaced the vacuum lines, complimented Lisa for her field repairs (particularly how she improvised a solution to the annoying case where the two ends of the line had to be different sizes), and re-tuned the engine. He wasn't able to reproduce the problem of the van not wanting to restart (sometimes) when hot, but I'm not terribly surprised by this because it first showed up after we drove from Fernley to Winnemucca, which is a multi-hour drive at full freeway speed, and there's not much of a way for him to simulate that. I'm not asking him to drive the minivan to Fresno and back or something like that!
Still, we'll see how it works out. The re-tuning already sounds better, as the van had in fact been idling too fast (an over-reaction to how it had been stalling at low speeds before). I'm not planning on babying it today as I drive first to Yuba City to visit my mother and sister, then home to Fernley. I need to know how it will react in normal driving conditions, not with me applying extra TLC all the time.
After dropping the rental car, I walked back to Cory's shop and re-installed the central console that Lisa built to house the radios (and incidentally some cup-holders). As I was finishing up, Cory came back from a test drive of another vehicle on which he was working, and we talked about how the repairs went. He'd like me to bring the van back to him after the San Diego trip because he has some ideas about what may be troubling it that he'd like to try out without the immediate and acute problems with which he's been working. I agreed that I'd give him a call when I get back from San Diego, and asked him how much I owed him for this round of work.
"Don't worry about it," he said.
"You sure?" I asked, and he confirmed it.
Times like this are to be remembered when people ask why I go to so much trouble to bring my vehicle back to this Fremont mechanic if it's possible to do so, even though it's often logistically hasslesome and costs me more overall.
