Fixing Cars

It is a good thing I am working from home this week as two of my cars are requiring service attention. Last Friday my wife was out running errands in her Subaru when the air conditioning went out, probably associated with our dirt-road vacation last week. Then the "check engine" light came on in the Jeep Cherokee or XJ my kids drive. I don't know how people worked on cars before the Internet.

I was notified of my wife's Subaru problem before she even got home. So I started looking on the Internet to see if there were any common problems on her car. It turns out the clutch is less than reliable. When she got home, I opened the engine, looked at the air compressor, and could immediately see that it was indeed the clutch. Unfortunately they don't just sell clutches and I needed a whole new air compressor. Too bad those things are like $700 for just the part. As I have mechanical breakdown insurance on her car, I only had to cover the deductible and so I had a professional shop take care of the repair. Decharging and recharging the A/C system seemed like too much of a hassle to deal with at home. Had I been willing to do the work myself, there were YouTube videos showing me how.

Yesterday the Jeep XJ's warning light came on. While the car still ran, it is not a good idea to keep driving it until the problem was diagnosed. I pulled out my trusty OBD II computer, plugged it into the Jeep's socket under the dashboard and read off 2 codes that were being thrown: P0171 and P0133. A quick search on the Internet said that the fuel system is running lean and that the oxygen sensor before the catalytic converter is giving a slow response. My experience with OBD II codes is to deal with the 2nd one and it should take care of the first. Further searching on the Internet suggested that the O2 sensor needed replacing. So this morning, I headed to the trusty auto parts store before work and picked up a new one. My son then helped me replace it. Then I unplugged the battery for 15 minutes to reset the car's computer. I then let my son drive the Jeep for a bit to see if the engine light would come on again. So far, it hasn't.

Cars are getting much more complex to repair on your own. However with the Internet, it is also getting easier to fix certain problems.