Being Demoted From My "Mr. Fix-it" Title.

You can no longer "fix" the car. 

Like a General who has lost one too many battles,  I have been demoted to a desk job or "adviser" position, or something like that. Specifically,  I have lost Cheryl's faith in my ability to fix the Subaru.   I'll be the first to admit, my own confidence in my ability has it's limits.   I know when I am out of my league most of the time.  But now,  Cheryl assumes that not only will I not be able to fix the Subie...  I'll most likely break it further.    This change in events has seriously bruised my already damaged ego.

Chasing down the Subaru Problem is like this. 

But what am I to do?   I can hardly do much here in Wellman, Iowa with this fickle weather and limited arsenal of tools at my disposal.   Subie is, indeed, old.    A 2003 with well over 250,000 miles is already well past most of his peers on the American side.  Add in the hot, cold, damp, and dry weather changes we have been going through and you can see that pegging down his symptoms is akin to throwing darts blindfolded in a hurricane.

I think I know the problem...  or at least one of them. 

This is all because the other day,  we thought we had fixed the Subie's chronic left turn issue.   It lasted two days.   Today, not only did it revert back to the old "studder studder" on left turns,   he also stalled as we tried to start him up.   Very frustrating! 

I took out the Power steering pressure sensor and cleaned it off,  and temporarily fixed the problem...  but this now means that we will have to flush the power steering fluid and replace with new.   Something Cheryl does not want me to attempt!  To be honest,  I'm not sure I could pull it off in my driveway outside anyway.

Must be nice having all that stuff.

  Add in that it is supposed to rain tomorrow, and things could get really messy. Of course the Mechanics  in Iowa City can do a better job...  with their tools and  well-lit garage.    But all of this bother could really be several separate issues all piling up to confuse us and cause insomnia on a daily level.  I'm convinced that the Mechanics are convinced that Cheryl and I are simply crazy! 

Perhaps this is the cause of the stalling?

Cheryl has a new O2 Sensor coming, because we still can not seem to make that code go away.   At the very least, I know how to change that one.  Assuming Cheryl will allow me to touch Subie under the hood ever again.

If only things could get fixed..and stay that way!

So for the remainder of the day,  I will stop looking for You Tube "How to fix your broken, aging Subaru" videos and focus on other things.   I should note that Cheryl was able to run... a little today.   Her knee began bothering her again.  Coincidentally at the same time we realized Subie was not fixed.  I can only guess if there is a correlation.