Vehicle Rant

[Captain Smollett]

Monday mornin', the trusty ole Durango crapped out on I-20.  Symptom: acted like it was out of gas, but gauge read 3/8 (or a bit more) of a tank.

Limped on to gas station and put some in; she ran okay for me to get to the Dodge place where I dropped it off.  They said "she was out of gas."  Okay, so why was the gauge reading 3/8 of tank?  Upon further inpsection, they said the sensor lead was unplugged.  They reinstalled and recalibrated.

Side note: In MY experience, whenever a sensor lead breaks connection, the gauge usually reads either off-scale high or off-scale low.  I've NEVER seen one 'trap' in the middle like that would have been doing.  But, with today's computerized engines, who knows.

Fast Forward to today.  Driving home, once again, same thing.  Gauge reading 1/4 tank and she acts like she's out of gas.  Hunter, Jonathan and I foot-it about a mile a church that graciously let us use the phone to call Becky.

Interesting sidelights:

1.  The maiden name of the lady who let us use the phone is the same as my last name.  Her daughter in law has the same name as my wife, so when she heard me ask for on the phone, she was a little intrigued.  :)

2.  I looked up my wife's work number in the phone book (my cell phone has her numbers in it, but alas, I did not have it), and got a wrong number!!  It turns out that of all the numbers  in the book to have a typo (a 3 was misprinted as a 2), it was the one I needed to call!!  Ya gotta smile at that sort of thing.  (I called her other office and got the right number).

3.  Hunter was a little champ during our mile stroll.  Jonathan got to ride in the backpack, so he was just hanging out.  When I pulled off the road, Hunter said, "Oh no! We are going in the grass AGAIN."  :)

4.  I'm sending Thanks for their hospitality of the staff of the Olivet Christian School.  They were very nice and let us hang out while waiting for Becky to get there.

Now.  Here's hoping Dick Smith Dodge can find SOMETHING that is causing this and get it fixed.  Being "stranded" with two little ones is less than ideal.

(PS: Yes.  I COULD work on it myself.  Right now, I don't have the time to do so.  Becky and I talked about "what if this were something on the boat while we were 'out there.'"  Time and scheduling is the difference, imo).

[Captain Smollett]

Oh NO.  I just realized...I DID have my cell phone!  It was in my jacket pocket (rather than my brief case where I normally keep it).   :-[ :-[

Becky's gonna kill me.

[AdriftAtSea]

Ooops... always check all of your pockets Capn Smollett.  :D

BTW, I've never heard of a disconnected sender stopping in mid-range either... very odd behavior. 

[Captain Smollett]

Well, they found the problem.  Fuel Pump.

Ya'll don't even want to know what it is going to cost to replace the pump.  Let's just say that I know of SB-LD cruisers that could live on it for a month.

Once again, let's say it together: "You can count on engines to do one thing:  FAIL."

[Fortis]

I can tell you what it is, I recognise it all too well form our own experience with my ute. Fuel pump. It is an in-tank pump and a pain in the butt to get to, likely it is also a high-colume pump so you will be paying through the nose because it cannot be replaced by a nameless generic.

Happened to us when we were interstate, having put the ute ona  ferry, gone down to Tasmania and spent a week with friends that involved using my ute to move their pottery studio....

And it finally all-the-way quit when there was about 2 tons of wheels and kiln and stock clay in the back.



Alex.