Not just frowned upon

I went to KC this weekend for some personal business and my car was acting up on the way. The temperature gauge was pegged past the H. I was slightly worried, but still drove it for the next 3 hours or so to get to KC and get it fixed. (It never did overheat and have steam come out of it) Hey, I had to get there.

When I first noticed the problem I figured that it might just need some radiator fluid. No biggie. I stopped a gas station and picked some up. But I encountered some problems.

Problem 1--The hood on the car is wedged shut from an accident that I was in last year (it was a bad year for me accident wise) and instead of fixing the car I replaced my water heater at my house and paid some other bills. Fair trade, but now it takes two people to open the hood because of the dents. Being the ingeniusly crafty person I am I found a Home Depot pencil in the car and shoved it in the hood to hold the tension tight as I pulled up the hood release. Hood popped. Problem solved. Didn't have to bother any of the bikers parked outside. Sweet.

Problem 2--Engine was very hot, thus I shouldn't open the radiator cap with my bare hands. I dug around in the car and found an old pair of baby jeans to use to turn the cap. (This is where the fun starts) I had always heard that you weren't supposed to remove the cap when the engine was hot, yadda yadda yadda. But I figured, what's the worst thing that can happen? I know it's hot and some steam will come out, so I'll just crank it and then turn away.

So I cranked it and the freaking cap shot into the air like Mount St. Helens had just blown it's cap again. I did wisely turn away, but I turned back to watch the shower of fluid spurting all over the engine bay. It was like a volcano erupting and like the Bellagio fountain going at the same time. It was quite cool. (I felt really bad about all the fluid all over the ground though, and I wasn't sure what to do with it. I told the workers inside but I think they did not care at all.) I thought all that would come out would be steam not actual spurts of the actual fluid.

So, I guess it's not just frowned upon to take the cap off like that, it's just kind of stupid. I did fill the car up and it didn't seem to help at all.

Problem 3--I took the car to a place by my friend's house and the shop must be run by some kind of crazy communist. He seemed to not have any concern that I was in town for one day, that my car was overheating and I needed to have it looked at and I wanted him to look it over. He said he would look at it and he didn't really seem to care to fix it (as the owner it would give him more profit so where is the entrepreneurship??) but I left it there with the understanding that he would look at it on Saturday and let me know what was up. Finally 90 minutes before the shop closes (not open on Sundays) I stop in and harass him and he was just starting to look it over. He finally determines that it's most likely some thermostat thing. 10 minutes later he orders the $10 part and starts fixing it. It didn't cause any problems on the way home so he was right. I couldn't believe this guy would bo so cavalier about it when he knew I was under a time contraint and I could easily have taken it to a different store that WAS open on Sundays so they could look it over. If he wasn't interested in looking at it he should have told me that on Friday when I called and asked him if he could look at it and I would have gone somewhere else.

I'm not sure what the moral of the story is, I'm just writing about it. Cars suck by the way.

FGLB