Car Trouble

   Devon couldn't find his school computer and was sure he left it in the car so I told him to go look. He came back in a while later and said that he couldn't get the windows up. The Nissan Quest has this feature if you leave the keys in the lock for too long the windows roll down. So I went to fix it and found the car unresponsive. I figured it was the battery so I tried to jump it. No dice. Daniel tried to jump it when he got home with similar results. 

    The next few days we tried different things, but it was just dead. Nothing was working. It was a real puzzle. Daniel was able to get the windows up by powering them directly, but no further headway was made. We had been discussing getting rid of it anyway because it won't fit us all in a few months. I guess this was the sign to get that done sooner rather than later.  

    Then a few weeks later the blue car that Daniel uses to commute was shaking something fierce and we decided to take it in before it got worse. The very next day Daniel was on his way to work when the big van threw a sparkplug and he limped it back to the shop. He walked home and shocked me, it was 5 am. He was really frustrated about not having a working vehicle, but luckily, other than having to take the day off of work, it wasn't a real inconvenience. 

     In fact, we got the van back that afternoon! The mechanic was surprised because a thrown spark plug usually leads to an engine fire. Daniel was very lucky and I know he was protected. It should have destroyed the engine. We were able to get the other car fixed by the next day so we're back in business and only $800 dollars out of pocket. I think we got off easy. It did put a fire under us though and we started the process of purchasing a new car.