Road Trip Hell

[rollinghome]

I had a beautifully authored and lengthy post in process but I somehow closed the tab (stupid netbook) before I was able to submit it. This is congruent with the state of my life right now I suppose.

So now, the very short story.

Moving back to Maine from Washington State with a recently purchased 1999 Astro van with 140k miles. 1300+ miles into the trip my check engine light comes on and the van starts to run rough. I bring it to a mechanic (in Cozad NE) who checks the code (p0300), changes the plugs, wires, fuel filter, gives the "ok" to the existing distributor cap and gear. I pointed out the gear based on things I read on these forums. He scoffs at the idea any useful information can be found online, says the gear couldn't possibly be related to this issue and I wasted my money asking him to check it. He charged me $72 just to inspect the gear. He gets everything back together enough to start it, still running rough so he says "there's a 95% chance replacing the injector assembly (or some such $525 part) will solve the issue". Keep in mind I've been sitting IN the shop the whole time (half of the day) and I have seen him run ZERO tests and he's already charging me $550 for this half-assed tune-up so I pass on his suggestion and decide to carry on to the next mechanic. He puts everything back together, shrugs his shoulders and sends me on my way.

53 miles later I stop in an actual city with resources, find a mechanic, tell him my situation, he starts to tear into things. Guess what he finds? Well, the previous failure of a mechanic put my NEW plug wires in wrong (a part of the job in which he charged me $188 dollars for) plug wires 1 and 5 were switched, one of the wires connected to the correct cylinder was the wrong wire (too short) so it burned almost completely through because it was sitting right on the exhaust manifold. The distributor cap tested good on the bench but tested bad while installed. The gear at the bottom of the distributor was BAD per new mechanics inspection. He said it was worn heavily and considered the teeth to be much to "sharp" on the ends. Upon further testing the #1 cyl had NO compression, Not sure if this was due to the flipped plug wires from the previous mechanic since the dumbass never even did a compression test while he had the plugs out. Current mechanic couldn't see inside the #1 cyl very well so I gave him the go ahead to remove that head to track down the compression issue and check the condition of the cylinder. The results, pitted cyl wall, "sucked" a valve into the head. The more we dug the uglier it got, didn't even go into the other head before I decided to spend every penny I have, plus borrow more (money) to replace the engine with a remanufactured one. Nearly a day worth of diagnosis and bad news, the bill just getting higher I gave up.

So here I am in the middle of Nebraska, burning money on a hotel room (for a week) with my dogs, my van dead in a shop, all of my savings about to be spent. This easily ranks as the 2nd worst road trip of my life. Hopefully this means I won't have any engine issues for awhile.

If you are ever traveling through Nebraska and have auto trouble DO NOT take your vehicle to Collins Automotive in Cozad.

[doyoulikeithere]

Sorry to hear it bro.
Wish I lived nearby to help out...
reman engines are great from here, I have one...
Check the prices.
http://www.hiperformer.com/engines/gmc- ... rlb_6.html

[mdmead]

Wow, that is a bad road trip! But I feel your pain!

My worst was when my six-month-old Ford Ranger (back in 86) started burning oil when I was visiting Valdosta, GA. By the time I reached Washington State, I was using a quart every 250 miles, and none of the dealers I stopped at would give me the time of day to diagnose the problem. With limited time, I stocked up on oil, and headed to my destination of Ft. Hood, TX. By the time I got there, I was using a quart every 75 miles. My nightmare started afterwards though... when my new truck spent 30 days at the local dealership, Ford not giving me a loaner, several disagreements with the service manager (which resulted in my being banned from future visits), and finally a returned truck that put out a huge puff of blue smoke every time it was started. Argh!

[rollinghome]

3/4 of a day in labor chasing down the damage and issues of my existing motor, reman motor, parts to satisfy the warranty requirements of the new motor (new oil cooler, etc), installation of the reman motor and the cost incurred from the previous wingnut mechanic and this is looking like a $6k disaster.

That's a raw deal mdmead. I can't believe you were treated so poorly with a 6 month old vehicle. Were you stationed in Ft Hood? I was there in 95 visiting my cousin who was stationed there. The heat was unbearable in the summer months.

Although this is a terrible and depressing road trip, my worst was several years ago when I headed down to Baja in my 1999 Jeep Cherokee Sport (50k miles at the time) with my dog, a friend and a trailer full of supplies. The plan was to live down there for an undefined period of time. Living was cheap so I probably could have made it a couple years on the supplies and cash I had but fate had a different plan. Some scumbag intentionally ran over my dog one morning which set off a chain reaction that nearly killed both me and my dog. I brought him to a vet a couple hours from where we were staying but the language barrier left me with a lot of questions and concerns. I waited it out for about 5 days until my dog had a spasm and a severe spike of pain then I started packing my gear for departure. I might add, I was especially paranoid about my dogs condition because in previous years he sustained a serious spinal injury that was mostly corrected by neurosurgery. So I packed my stuff and off I went at dusk, against the pleadings of the seasoned baja beach friends I had made. They begged me to wait until morning to leave but I was on a mission and nothing was stopping me. This is also a very long unbelievable story but lets just say, I rolled my Jeep halfway up the Baja peninsula, in the middle of nowhere and miraculously lived to tell the tale. Somehow my dog also survived and despite being buried with everything in the back of my Jeep, did not sustain further injury, My Jeep also survived thanks to my ARB bull bar that prevented the engine compartment from being crushed when I rolled. My trailer was not so lucky but I could care less about material possessions at a time when I nearly lost my own life and the life of my best buddy. Throughout the process of getting back on the road I saw both the ugliest side of humans I've seen personally (tow truck driver and the Mexican equivalent to our highway patrol) and one of the most beautiful sides of people (the Mexican military and a fellow traveler that stopped to help).

All said and done, we survived and lost nothing of truly great importance. If I make it back to Maine in one piece I guess the same will be true. Losing big chunks of money can hurt but it wont kill me, yet.

[LiftedAWDAstro]

Great positive attitude! I think I would be more upset than you are. I hate to say it but would it be better to sell the van and buy something else rather than throw $6k into it? The other side of it is that with a new engine, you should be good for a lot of miles. On your way, if you run into trouble in NY, PM me and I can see if I can help. I am in central NY north of Syracuse. Not sure what your road plans are.

[mdmead]

That's a raw deal mdmead. I can't believe you were treated so poorly with a 6 month old vehicle. Were you stationed in Ft Hood? I was there in 95 visiting my cousin who was stationed there. The heat was unbearable in the summer months.

Yeah, wasn't a happy camper. Wasn't real supportive of Fords for quite awhile after that. (Of course now I own four of them and a Mazda... go figure! But I go out of my way to avoid dealing with Ford dealerships for parts and service to this day.) Yes, that was the beginning of a two-year stint at Ft. Hood as an Air Force Weather Observer.

So I packed my stuff and off I went at dusk, against the pleadings of the seasoned baja beach friends I had made. They begged me to wait until morning to leave but I was on a mission and nothing was stopping me. This is also a very long unbelievable story but lets just say, I rolled my Jeep halfway up the Baja peninsula, in the middle of nowhere and miraculously lived to tell the tale. Somehow my dog also survived and despite being buried with everything in the back of my Jeep, did not sustain further injury, My Jeep also survived thanks to my ARB bull bar that prevented the engine compartment from being crushed when I rolled.

All said and done, we survived and lost nothing of truly great importance.

Wow, this current trip is a walk in the park for you!

I was flat-towing a Dodge Ramcharger cross-country and it lost a wheel bearing one time. I hated the feeling of helplessness, that is, depending on service from companies/people you don't know/trust and the lost time and funds. In retrospect, mine was easy, just requiring the rental of a car trailer and loading it and moving along. Yours is about 100 times mine for cost and inconvenience.

[1Gary]

Like Lifted said I'm in Roch,NY right off 104 near the 90 before Lifted and can help out if you need it with a shop:



Just PM me if needed.My road trip from hell was dolly towing a Astro back from Ohio with next to nothing brakes.

[rollinghome]

Great positive attitude! I think I would be more upset than you are. I hate to say it but would it be better to sell the van and buy something else rather than throw $6k into it? The other side of it is that with a new engine, you should be good for a lot of miles. On your way, if you run into trouble in NY, PM me and I can see if I can help. I am in central NY north of Syracuse. Not sure what your road plans are.

Don't get me wrong, this is really depressing to me but I'm trying my hardest to keep it in perspective. I am really pissed at the first mechanic.

Ditching the van was definitely and option I seriously considered. I'm in quite a predicament. First off, I have only owned the van for aprx. 2 months and in that time I've probably put less than 2k miles on it, including this trip. So that's 2k miles for the purchase price of $3600. I can't remember exactly how much my registration fees were but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $500. On top of that I had the tranny checked out for $135, spent a few days installing a stereo system, a couple more days installing a bed platform, plus the $550 ripoff from mechanic #1 and most of a day in fees from mechanic #2 chasing down the issues @ lets say $500. Not to mention, if I don't get my van fixed I'll be paying a daily lot fee for my trailer sitting at the mechanics place. This whole predicament is really insane. Then there are the logistics of even buying another vehicle when I have no transportation to even drive to said vehicle. All of the local rental car places wont rent to me without a credit card (I only have a debit card) and if they find out I have dogs the deal is off. So any prospective seller would have to drive to me, at my hotel. Not an impossibility but it certainly makes things difficult. Then I need to blow more money re-registering it which I don't even think I can do out of state. If it doesn't have a tow package I need to install one, I kiss all of my labor, materials, etc invested in my current van goodbye. Even if I did buy another van I could drive it 500 miles down the road and blow the motor...then jump off a very tall building.

An AWD Astro really is as close to my ideal vehicle as possible so I'm trying to look at this as an investment in a van I will hopefully have for a long time. Now if only the transmission makes it to Maine *fingers crossed*.

Yeah, wasn't a happy camper. Wasn't real supportive of Fords for quite awhile after that. (Of course now I own four of them and a Mazda... go figure! But I go out of my way to avoid dealing with Ford dealerships for parts and service to this day.) Yes, that was the beginning of a two-year stint at Ft. Hood as an Air Force Weather Observer.

Wow, this current trip is a walk in the park for you!

I was flat-towing a Dodge Ramcharger cross-country and it lost a wheel bearing one time. I hated the feeling of helplessness, that is, depending on service from companies/people you don't know/trust and the lost time and funds. In retrospect, mine was easy, just requiring the rental of a car trailer and loading it and moving along. Yours is about 100 times mine for cost and inconvenience.

Wow, you have a lot of vehicles. I'm surprised you continued to drive Fords after that.

I can relate, I feel like I'm earning my Master's Degree in Helplessness. The truth of the matter is that so many people have it much worse off than I do. :-({|=

My road trip from hell was dolly towing a Astro back from Ohio with next to nothing brakes.

Yeah, those brake thing-a-mah-jigs can be quite handy, even when you're not towing.

Thanks to both LiftedAWDAstro and Gary for offers to help. I was originally planning on a quick diversion to PA to visit a friend but I'm not sure if I'll stick to that plan after this fiasco. If I don't go to PA my path will bring me right through Rochester. If I find myself in trouble in your neck of the woods I'll surely send you a PM. It's very kind of you both to offer assistance.

[rollinghome]

I called the first mechanic (that made my situation worse) and to his credit he actually refunded most mostof my bill (less parts and labor for the fuel filter). I still wouldn't recommend bringing your vehicle to them bit it was only fair to let you know they took steps to make the situation right.

My new engine is running smooth and I made it to Maine yesterday. Looking forward to trying out the new motor with no trailer and an empty van!

[LiftedAWDAstro]

Glad you made it there! Also glad the first mechanic made it mostly right.

[markmitchinnh]

Where in Maine are you my friend ? I am in Barrington NH
I grew up In Sanford Maine

[rollinghome]

Small world. I'm actually in Sanford, my place of birth.

Went to school in NH, most of my Maine time growing up was in Alfred.

[crazyvanman]

Sounds like you should have went from the first mechanic to U-Hall and got a truck and trailer to haul everything to destination, then sort out the bugs.
I hate all this for you but it is making me feel real good at my recent mishap.

[rollinghome]

I considered that option but I don't think there is a uhaul configuration that would have allowed me to tow both my van and cargo trailer.

[crazyvanman]

I considered that option but I don't think there is a uhaul configuration that would have allowed me to tow both my van and cargo trailer.

Oh yeah sure. I towed a 1946 Dodge 1 ton pickup and a 1967 MG midget with an entire household with U-Haul. Few years ago but truck and car hauler trailer cost me $32??.00..
And although i had to walk through a maze of passed out drunk indians to get the truck repaired at U-Haul in; (i think Gallop,NM.) It was a nice riding unit.