Friday, October 2, 2009

Duct tape? Really?

From Drop Box
Lise called me late this afternoon, sharing the news that she was enroute to Albany with her Dad.  What?  As I tried to wrap my mind around that information, she explained that her car had been acting up on her way home from work today.  She just happened to be driving near 12th, so she pulled into one of the available car repair places just as her car began to "steam like a tea kettle".  After they pulled it into a bay and checked it out, a mechanic told her that a broken valve had been "repaired" with duct tape.

And now it's a mystery--who did this temporary repair and why?

The last time the car had been worked on in a shop was sometime in the past couple of months in the Portland area.  James had been on his way to work when the car broke down on I-5.  Triple A towed him to a repair shop who replaced the worn part and sent him on his way.  Before that?  I'm not sure when it had last been in a shop.  Virginia maybe?

3 comments:

Salem Man said...

that's an easy fix, just put new duct tape on it.

Lise M said...

Mom, you made it sounds so easy. I actually was in a gravel lot off Mission and I found the problem which dad tried to repair which consisted of a drive to Albany. It all ended up ok after I had it towed to a car place. Simple fix.

SM: Apparently duct tape has a life of 3 months as a car repair mechanism. They should put that in the manual.

KandN said...

Well, simplification has always been your mother's goal. I don't always find success, but I do try.
I'm glad it turned out to be a loose distributor wire that prevented a start after the installation of the new valve. Very glad!