Reboot

Ok, so I know it's been quite a long time since I've written at the end of the semester. Now I've finally graduated and I'm learning to be a housewife, working woman and unemployed-in-the-real-world.

But just for the sake of updates, I'll just start rambling. As I noted in one of my older posts, I'd been in an accident and rear-ended someone. Since then our truck has been in the shop at Chapman Automotive Repair Center. They're certified through our insurance company. Since then it's been nothing but problems. During the first month they had it everything seemed fine despite the fact the guy calling me with updates didn't know anything specific that was happening to the truck; all he said was that repairs were on schedule. That's really reassuring right? Well we'd had problems.

We received the truck back a couple days before it was scheduled to be done. I noticed some problems with the paint job on on the passenger front fender and pointed it out to our technician, I guess you could call him. Looking at the fender with the glare from the setting sun, I could see dimples in the clear coat. They weren't huge and massively noticeable, but I remembered when my father had work done, after my first accident in his car, telling the man in the shop that he'd sent planes back for less while he was in the Navy.

When our tech explained it to me, he said that what happens is that sometimes nicks prior to repainting could have problems getting buffed out. I internally laughed and thought, "To do a paint job right, are you not supposed to strip, prime, sand, paint and finish the vehicle? I've watched enough episodes of Overhaulin' to know that." (not that I'm trying to say I know more than this guy did, I just felt like that was the best way to do a paint job right and if my insurance company is shelling out almost $10,000 I'd like it to be done right.)

As soon as we got the truck home, Louis discovered a clip in the wheel well that had not been secured down, causing the plastic to wear against the tire and creating a burning smell. The battery was bubbling over, and something was rattling in the driver's side door.

Two days later, I barely got the engine to turn over after a very, not-so-nice "rurrr....rurr....rurrr...rruuuuuuvrooooooom" of the engine. I took it to Checker to have it replaced, put the battery back in about an hour and a half after I'd gotten there, and then it happened. The key fob back at home since we weren't used to driving with it, I battled with the after-market alarm system to get the truck started. With nothing happening and the key not being read in the door, I had to consent defeat and walked two blocks to where my Sunfire was sitting at my husband's bus stop.

To make a longer story short, the tech told us we just needed to drive with the key fob (which sounds like a good idea, but there were problems with the alarm that we were having after the accident occurred), gave us the run-around after dealing with it and left us with a broken wind-shield-wiper-fluid spout from the hood of the truck.

Grrr on Chapman Automotive.