The Honda Causes Havoc!

Elkhart, IN      High:  54   Low:  39  Another cold snap.....

Sparky was planning on having an uneventful afternoon scrapbooking today, with Eldy's sister-in-law, Shell. Shell picked Sparky up at the campground and first took her out to lunch in Nappannee and then we chatted away the afternoon catching up on all kinds of things, our kids, our lives....We didn't get a lot of scrapbooking done, but it was wonderful to catch up with a gal who is wonderful to talk to and makes Sparky truly feel like a family member. Thank you, Shell, for treating me to a wonderful afternoon!

Sparky happened to look over at her phone while scrapbooking, and saw a message from Eldo..Eldy was going to run an errand in the car but couldn't."The car battery is totally dead."  Hunh? We just got a battery last month!  The car was so dead that Eldy couldn't use the automatic key unlock feature on the key fob. He tried to start it with our little battery charger, but we either didn't have enough charge in the charger or the battery was totally wiped out. He called Good Sam's Roadside Assistance. After asking him some questions, they determined he probably just needed a jump. So they sent out a service rep. In a CAR.....Eldy didn't take a picture, he was too hyped up with his nerves. He sometimes freaks out a little when things go wrong.

The rep from Good Sam's had a bigger charger than we do. The car started right up. They let it run for a bit, the guy gets back in his car, starts to go around our site, Eldy shuts the hood on the car and all of a sudden...."P-SHHHHHHHHH--T!" To Eldy, it sounded like the sound a diesel pusher makes when the air releases...It was an explosive sound...NOT GOOD!  Eldy hollered for the Good Sam's guy to come back. He does and he says, "Was that your car?"  Yep!   When he walked over the car, it made the sound again. "P-SSSSHHHHHHTTTT!" He crawled under the car, looked it over, didn't see anything but told Eldy, "I've never heard anything like that. If I were you, I'd call a tow truck."  HELLO! Wouldn't you think Good Sam's would have sent a tow truck in the first place on a service call, even if the customer only needed a jump?  Just in case something more major was going on and a tow was needed?  Eldo was NOT impressed.

Eldy decided after a few calls around, one to Honda right here in Elkhart, that he would drive the car over to the dealer. There was no water on the ground. If the car overheated, he'd pull off the road and then call for a tow. He got to the dealer without a mishap. The Gurley Leep Honda dealership diagnosed a stuck relay switch in the open position to the air conditioner. The air compressor was staying on constantly in the on position until it ran the battery down. The explosive sound was a release of freon coming out from the air conditioner. The amount of freon lost was so much that this had been going on for awhile, they said. We never heard a thing until the battery died and we attempted to charge it back up. We had been driving the car enough that it hadn't quite driven the battery down until it sat overnight. Three hundred and seven dollars later, everything was fixed--all new freon, they put a dye in it in case the explosive release caused any hairline cracks, which they said can sometimes happen. So we will have to watch carefully.  Gurley Leep Honda in Elkhart did an excellent job today for what we feel was a reasonable price to fix all that. This is the very first time that we have ever had a problem with our 2009 Honda and it was really, a very minor one, a stuck relay switch.

That took all afternoon from noon to five o'clock. We had planned to meet Eldy's long time friends of over 30 years for dinner at Heinnie's Back Barn. We made it! Eldy needed a couple of beers to unwind and relax. He deserved them!  After a wonderful steak dinner, Eldy felt much better....