10/25/2024
The great van fixing of 2024 continues. I thought they had everything fixed after the last time I had it in the shop, but two nights ago all of the same lights, warnings, and systems came on. I pulled into a grocery store parking lot and I was about two miles away from a Midas. I waited until traffic calmed down before I attempted to limp the van there. I finally got there and parked for the night.
Right away in the morning I got it into the shop. They put the code reader on it and said they weren’t even going to look at it and to bring it to the dealership. I called my contact at Midas and he recommended the same to at least get a diagnostic from them. I called all of the dealers in the area to find one that had openings relatively quickly. I found one that was 20 miles North that could get me in the next day. I went to the library to be able to get out of the van for the day and made arrangements for the van to get towed to the dealership.
The tow company said they would be at Midas at 6PM. Great, I can spend the whole day in the library and then meet them. They get there with a flatbed truck. The guy starts hooking it up and gets a call from his boss. He gets off the phone and tells me he was told he couldn’t do the tow. He didn’t really give me a reason, started putting everything away, and leaves.
I call my insurance back and they get another company lined up. They are supposed to be there at 8 or 9PM. The don’t even show up and cancel the call. Insurance gets another company set up, but they can’t show up until 11PM. Fine, I’m getting irritated at this point. They show up with a pull behind wrecker and we get going.
It takes about 40 minutes to get to the dealership. We didn’t even go under any bridges to warrant the pull behind and I could’ve made it with the first company. I camp out in the dealership parking lot overnight.
In the morning I go in right when they open and tell them the situation. I give them the keys and they they take over. Around 11AM they figure out what is going on and it’s the same old thing, the cam position sensor. They give me an estimate and I call my Midas guy. He approves paying for the replacement at the dealer as the cost was about the same. They have me ready by noonish. I go out to get going and see that my window button is broken, awesome. I go back inside, tell the guy, he asks the tech, the tech admits that he broke it, they get approval from the manager, and replace the part. This takes another hour. I finally get out of there at 2:30PM.
As I’m making my way toward the Air and Space museum I stopped at Atlas Brew Works and ONO Brewing Company. Atlas was in a huge cinema/mall area and parking was annoying to find. They had a couple of good beers and the pizza place had Flat Iron Pepper Co shakers on all of the tables. They also had single serving packets that I was able to get a couple of before I left. ONO only really had one good beer, their Outrigger stout. I had a bunch of samples, but nothing else really hit well. They were also a self pour brewery, so tasting was easy.
