Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

in the shop

Some friends and I are planning to drive out to Indianapolis next month for a wedding, and we’re taking my car. In preparation, I took my car in to the dealership yesterday morning for an early 51,000-mile check-up (I’m only at 50,700 miles, but close enough). I’ve been kind of concerned about my brakes and tires, so I asked the service people to take a look at them for me and just generally make sure my car is good to go for a road trip.

Around 11 a.m., I got a call from the service department. Good news: My brakes are good for another 3-6,000 miles, and my tires are good for probably another 10,000 miles. But… they found a few other things that needed attending to. Since I know nothing about the inner workings of automobiles, my eyes kind of glazed over as the man explained what was wrong with my car. I did catch, however, the price of the repairs. Wincing from the pain (and thankful for my recent freelance projects), I told him to go ahead with the repairs.

He told me my car would be ready by 4:30 p.m., which struck me as odd, mainly because I somehow expected that almost $500 in repairs would take longer to do. I knew better than to complain, though — it’s far better to pay for the repairs and get the car back same-day than to face the double-whammy of paying for the repairs and having to be without my car for an extended period of time.

That evening, when I picked up my car, the cashier gave me an itemized list of the service that had been done:

1. “51,000 mile service”
   Well, that’s what I brought my car in for, so no surprise there.
2. “Replaced the leaking cam cover gasket and oil-soaked spark plugs and wires”
   I have no idea what a cam cover gasket is, but I assume that oil getting all over your sparkplugs and wires is a bad thing. A Google search was unhelpful, pointing me to sites that sell said cam cover gaskets, rather than explaining what they are. Andrew explained it to me, but I don’t know that I’d be able to explain it to anyone else.
3. “Replaced worn [serpentine] belt that was beginning to crack”
   Andrew explained to me that the serpentine belt kind of runs everything in the car. (Side note: Ask me about fan belts sometime. I have a story.) After a Google search, I found a very simple explanation at the Brake Masters site, of all places.
4. “Throttle Service: R and R the throttle plate to clean the carbon build up off the throttle plate”
   I found this explanation of what a throttle plate is: “Throttle plate is a round disk or butterfly on a shaft that allows air into the engine as the accelerator pedal is pushed.” Okay. Works for me.