erinammons.com » Mechanical Things

181,000

Erin — Fri, 13 May 2011 20:48:22 +0000

My car’s odometer rolled over 181,000 miles this week. I’ve had the car for 11 years now – it had 24,000 miles on it when I bought it.

In the last 2 years, I’ve driven 72,000 of those miles just to and from work.

I plan on buying a newer car within a year. But I am really going to miss this one when its gone.

YAY COMPTUER BROEKN

Erin — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:19:05 +0000

Damn. It. All. Why does this always happen when I have a bunch of other, more pressing, issues going on?

I came home yesterday after lunch and the computer was powered off, with that awesome tell-tale “burnt electronics” smell emanating from its general area.

I can order a new one for about the same price (heh, including Windows 7) as it would cost me to replace the borken parts of the current one. The choice seems fairly obvious.

This will also give me a chance to do that long-delayed update from Kubuntu 8 to Kubuntu 10. And give me an excuse to buy a new monitor. And an external HD dock. And install VirtualBox so I can have Windows as a guest OS instead of rebooting every time we need Windows for something.

Tahoe Update

Erin — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 04:45:56 +0000

Back in the Life Update post I mentioned that our Tahoe had white lettering put on it to express Bart’s displeasure with having to shell out a bunch of extra money to fix stuff right after buying it. I won’t go into specific details here, but just suffice to say he got his money back for the repairs, in full. The lettering is now gone. I do have a pic of what it looked like, if you want to see it let me know.

Life Update.

Erin — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 02:38:20 +0000

Just gonna make it a list.

Work
- Moved to the Secteam in Sept.
- Back on 2nd shift (4pm-12am) in Oct.
Car stuff
- Bart bought a 2004 Tahoe in Aug.
- Its been in 3 times for repairs. Over $1600 spent before 2 payments were made.
- Tahoe now has pretty white letters on the side expressing our unhappiness. [pics forthcoming]
- Contour is still running like a champ.
- Bonneville had to have the upper and lower intake manifolds done AGAIN, to the tune of $1200.
- Both Bonneville and Tahoe have aftermarket remote start/car alarms.
- Bonneville has back windows darkly tinted.
Other stuff
- Still checking out apts in Grand Rapids, however moving to Marshall or staying in Lansing are now options as well
- Apt building we are currently in had to have major sewer repairs a couple weeks ago

Car Annoyances

Erin — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 04:39:38 +0000

Bart purchased an after-market alarm/remote start for my car back in August. We ordered 3 remotes (1 two way and 2 one way). The 3rd remote wouldn’t program. After a few weeks of fiddling with it, the guy who installed it finally got it programed, in the 4th remote ‘slot’, and the general consensus is that slot 3 doesn’t work.

A couple days ago, I was taking a nap and Bart was up working at his desk, and my remote started going off, like someone was trying to break into the car. He rushed out, but didn’t find anything suspicious at the time. We figured someone just lifted one of the door handles to see if it was locked, and ran away when the alarm went off.

Tonight when I got home, I got out of my car, locked it, and went inside. By the time I kicked my shoes off at the front door, my remote started beeping, and the shock sensor icon was on. I put my shoes back on and went back out. The alarm didn’t seem to be going off, but as I was standing there, the shock sensor gave warning chirps like someone bumped the car. Nothing was touching it. It wasn’t windy, and there were no trucks rumbling by.

I’m starting to grow very suspect of this alarm unit. My remote has also randomly rebooted itself on several occasions, despite the battery icon showing ‘full’.

Career Cruising

Erin — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 08:09:49 +0000

Posted this on my LJ awhile ago. Usually I put this stuff on the “Quiz Results” page, but I thought I would put it here instead.

Not really all that surprising. I think I like machines more than people sometimes. Maybe because they’re a little more predictable?

1. Electrical Engineering Tech
2. Electronics Engineering Tech
3. Computer Engineer
4. Drafter
5. Industrial Designer
6. Electrical Engineer
7. Mathematician
8. Electrician
9. Computer Network Specialist
10. Office Machine Repairer

Go to www.careercruising.com
Log in with Username: nycareers, Password: landmark
Take the “Career Matchmaking” questionnaire
Post your top 10 results.

Car Problems

Erin — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 06:18:16 +0000

I’d been having a few nagging issues with my car lately (a ’98 Pontiac Bonneville), including a slow-ish coolant leak, misfiring on at least 2 cylinders and a subtle whining noise coming from the engine. I went up to TC last Friday and took it to the usual oil change place for.. what else, an oil change. The guys there found the coolant very low, and told me it had some discoloration to it. They also told me the whining was the tensioner pulley, and that if it wasn’t replaced soon it could seize up and break the serpentine belt. Bart had previously replaced one of the ignition coils in an attempt to cure the misfiring problem, but it seemed the wires &/or plugs needed replacing too/instead. He purchased plugs & wires at an auto parts store and on Tuesday I took my car to a repair shop near where I work.

Wednesday I got a call from the mechanic telling me that yes, the tensioner pulley was bad, and the plugs/wires should be replaced. But, the worst and most expensive thing wrong with my car was a deteriorated Upper Intake Manifold Gasket. For those interested and especially owners of GM vehicles with the 3800 Series II engine, read this article.

What happens is this: since the UIM is basically a plastic composite and literally touches a hot part of the engine (the EGR stovepipe), it degrades over time and eventually fails causing coolant to be sucked into the engine, which contaminates the oil and causes the engine to seize if not caught in time. The gist of the article is that this is not just a common issue with this engine,Â it happens to every single one due to the way this part is designed. That’s fine and dandy if you drive your car a lot and it happens while still under warranty/extended warranty. In the seven years I’ve had my car I’ve only driven it around 55,000 miles total (it just rolled 80,003 when I took it to the repair shop). Not bad, but I wish I had known about this before, I might have done something about it or at least had it checked 3-4 years ago. Its going to cost around $900 to fix (including the pulley and plugs/wires).