revjim.net

On my way to work yesterday morning, I heard a loud pop come out from under the hood of my truck. Then it began making a terrible noise, drove horribly, and felt as though it would stall if I didn't keep my foot on the gas. My initial thought was that I had broken a belt. So I got out to see… while in the left lane… of the tollway. People were very pissed off.

None of the belts seemed to be broken, so I decided to try to get it off the road so that people would stop honking and allow me more time to look it over. I finally get it started and, with my four-ways on, start to move to the right to get off the freeway. Of course I'm driving a lot slower than other people, and I'm trying to get off the road as quickly as possible. People were very pissed off.

I finally pulled into a gas station and called Jess to come get me. After she arrived I decided that a tow wasn't worth the money and that, whatever was wrong with it, I could make it to the service station 6 blocks down the road. I did.

To make a long story short, I finally convinced the man that, before telling me what it would cost and how long it would take, he should at least *look* at it first. After doing so, his estimate and time frame went down considerably. It wasn't the horrible engine problem he was initially quoting me for. I had simply thrown a spark plug.

I'm sure it's my fault. I changed my own plugs about 6 months ago, and the one that was thrown was the hardest to reach, so I probably didn't get it in very well. I let them fix it, just in case some more work needed to be done that I wouldn't notice.

10 hours later, they called to tell me it was finished. $47.50 for "checking the problem" (which was already done by the first guy, free of charge, in his "courtesy check"), 5.99 for a single spark plug, installing the plug was free.