Resolute Opinion

Broken down in Alabama *eek*

October 5, 2007 11:46 am adam Blog Posts

So here’s my first and only update from Birmingham. I don’t think I’ll be doing another. Anyway, I’m here in Montgomery Alabama to be exact. I’m still 2 hours south of Bham and its 10:40 which is an hour later than I expected to arrive in Bham. So I’ll at least be three hours late to my destination.

Outside of Dothan, my mom’s Xterra check engine light came on and the thing was rattling bad. It felt like a decrease in horsepower and idling was rough and the thing would just die while at red lights.

So, I called Nissan in Montgomery and they were complete idiots. Here’s their information.

Jack Ingram Nissan - www.jackingram.com
227 Eastern Blvd, Montgomery - (334) 277-5700

Yea, what a complete pain in my ass to call them. They just didn’t care or try. So, I rolled into a general imports mechanic shop and after an hour of diags the car had two pistons that weren’t firing. The guy was very friendly and knowledgeable and even took me under the hood. I’ve been doing my own semi-tune ups and I could see how bad it was. He offered to do a partial repair for under 200 but I wanted the whole whammy. $350 for a complete tune up and that was including only 50 for labor for the 1.5 hours.

Luckily:
there was a waffle house next door to chill in
I was able to receive wi-fi from a nearby hotel

So I’ve been keeping myself entertained, drinking OJ, feeding off wireless and doing my geek things. $350 is high but he’s replacing all four piston rings, championspark plugs, cables and some other minor hardware fixes. He took off the 85 bucks just to diagnose it cause the manager wasn’t there to enforce it.

I’m very glad that this worked out (well I haven’t driven it yet to verify) but I does suck that I’m delayed in my trip. A 3 hour delay (finding the place, diagnostics, discussion then 1 hour for repairs) equaled his much of a delay. I just hope this completely fixes the issue and I’m able to get up to Bham. If not, then I may be here through Tuesday since columbus day is Monday and most places around here don’t have parts deliveries on the weekends.

Crossing my fingers. I’ll update this if more harm comes but everything should work out.