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Lucas
has a reputation for quality among British car owners that only Firestone
would envy. Just to show, however, that the "Prince of Darkness" doesn't
necessarily have a lock on auto electric foolery, indulge me while I relate
a recent story about my Mitsubishi (Mirage turbo).
A couple weeks ago, mid-October,
I drove to work… I usually take the ACE (Altamont Commuter Express) Train
nowadays because the 35-mile drive over the infamous Sunol Grade and Route
237 is, probably, the worst drive in the Bay Area often taking 90 minutes
or more. It doesn't matter anymore what time one embarks on this trip;
the result is the same bad temper and frazzled nerves at its conclusion.
The train, on the other hand, is relatively hassle-free and kind of a no-brainer.
Besides, it's much easier to get a little "shut-eye" on the train…
But on this day, I needed
to drive to work for a day of meetings and an uncertain time of return,
and I left early - on the road and driving by 5:15 am. This was not nearly
early enough to avoid being totally stopped on the freeway just 12 miles
from home. And this was a Wednesday ferchrisakes!
Now, the Mitsu started up
on this day just like every other day: an array of red dashboard lights
on ignition; followed by a brief moment of starter cranking and a reassuring
engine note; and the extinguishing of all "idiot" lights. What's that?
Oh yeah, seatbelts. Right. Now, they're all out. Every damned one of them…
Chugging along in first
gear and 45 minutes from home half-way up the "big hill," I was awakened
from the daze by my tape player misbehaving. Damn! I was getting
into Derek and the Dominos - "Crossroads Blues," the 15-minute live version,
and I was hoping that the tape player had not devoured yet another of my
gems. Then I noticed the dashboard lights - I thought they were brighter
than that! The digital clock just winked out, and the dash lights continued
to dim. Uh-oh. Scanning the dashboard for a problem, I |
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was
not reassured by the absence of any illuminated warning lights, and I knew
what's coming next as we crossed the summit. The engine stopped without
so much as a whimper, we coasted down the long grade in bumper-to-bumper,
stop-and-go formation with only very dim head and tail lights.
This
was not fun, but it was even less fun farther down the road. I exited 680
south at the first opportunity North Mission Boulevard Route 238. The exit
ramp is downhill with a generous shoulder, and I pulled off the road to
the far right coasting to a stop on the decline just a little past six
in the morning. This is no way to start the day! Worse - it was dangerous.
The emergency flashers were modest at best, for there was very little battery
life remaining to make them do their flashing thing. The commuters who
were wanting to turn right were exiting the jammed freeway and recklessly
using the shoulder to circumvent the stalled lane of left-turn drivers
and passing too close (to me and Mitsu) for comfort. Without hesitation,
I called for "the yellow truck" - AAA-Plus is a good thing.
My
first inclination was to diagnose the difficulty as a failure of the electrical
charging system. I managed to exit the car and open the bonnet to take
a quick peek for a frayed fan belt or maybe a bad battery connection or
something else painfully obvious, but nothing was obvious in the darkness
and both appeared to be fine. That left the alternator as the most likely
culprit or maybe the voltage regulator, but then - this was a "new age"
car with an hermetically sealed alternator with unserviceable brushes,
and God knows where the damned voltage regulator is! So, I abandoned further
efforts to make repairs and resigned myself to waiting for rescue, and
about an hour later - seven o'clock, a highway safety truck hooked-up and
towed us from our precarious location to an awaiting AAA truck which in
turn flat-bedded the forlorn Mitsu back to San Ramon and |
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