The Road to Hell is Paved With Good Intentions

The Wife says the expression is "The road to Heaven is paved with good intentions." I seem to recall otherwise. Here's the proof:

My wife's best friend here in Redlands is a real estate agent. Certainly, you know that the market for real estate is something akin to the market for fresh snow in Buffalo. So, the Best Friend's fifteen-year old imported car won't run well, and could I please take a look, since she's hard pressed for cash these days?

Do I consider myself a mechanic? I have my days. Most of my days were back in the 1970's, however, when cars didn't have computers or fuel injection. I shun those like Michael Jackson avoids the sun. Give me an old Chevy V8 and I can make it fly. Imports? Eweeuw.

But, armed with a handful of those funny metric wrenches that have sat, shiny and untouched, in my toolbox for years, I dug in.

I trolled my favorite junkyard for two hours, looking for the part Wifey's best friend said was bad. I passed an even dozen of the same model as hers, all missing that exact part. I took that as a bad sign. Why not buy a new part, you may ask? The little lump of aluminum no bigger than my fist lists for 200 bucks. Here, it would be $17 -- assuming I found it. And assuming it worked better than the one already on the car.

At last, armed with The Part, an IAVC, or IVAC, or some combination of vowels and consonants that has to do with the fuel injection system, I was ready to have a go. Said IAVC is happily right on top of the engine. Oh, but wait -- there's a ton of - let me use the technical term here - CRAP running interference that has to be moved out of the way before I can get to my target. Two hours later, success! I got the old hunk of aluminum off the car. I just had to hope I could remember how it all went back. Reinstalling it all took another two. The light is failing. I start the car, and behold!

It runs worse than before.

So... I spent another two hours this morning piecing it all back the way it was, and handed it back to The Friend. I wrote a long note for her real mechanic detailing what I done, and gave it to her with my apologies. I'm out two days and about $30 in parts and supplies, and yet, I feel horrible.

She wants to give me cookies. I refuse them; I'm too guilt ridden. For all I know, I've made the car even more expensive to repair. In retrospect, I did perform a true mechanic's duties. I left her seat out of adjustment and her stereo's presets deleted.

To quote Clint Eastwood, in a Dirty Harry movie, "a man's got to know his limitations." Or another favorite, from the Bible: Pride goeth before the fall.

I still think I'm right about the road to Hell, though.