we are driving to the store twice a week but that is always what we have done in the past and never had a problem.
i totally agree, i don’t want to ever again be at the mercy of a neighbor or AAA that is why i bought a rechargeable battery jumper from amazon. I will need to get the other things to especially the thing you can plug into our cigarette lighter. We do have another problem our hood latch is very lose, the one in the car that you pull to unhook the hood. I had to open it twice and it’s hanging on by a thin thread, we do need to get it replace but our shop said its going to be hard to find. We should have got it fixed long ago but right now it’s not safe for us to go to our repair shop, the waiting room is very small no way could there be any social distancing. I don’t mean to be paranoid about the virus but its just my mom and i, we can’t get sick there would be no one to take care of us or our animals that depend on us. But of course our car is so important to us. It’s going to be a year this month since we got the oil changed because of the same fear but i did find a drive thru oil change place we are going next month i just hope i will be able to open the hood again.
We do have another problem our hood latch is very lose, the one in the car that you pull to unhook the hood. I had to open it twice and it’s hanging on by a thin thread, we do need to get it replace but our shop said its going to be hard to find.
We should have got it fixed long ago but right now it’s not safe for us to go to our repair shop, the waiting room is very small no way could there be any social distancing. It’s going to be a year this month since we got the oil changed because of the same fear but i did find a drive thru oil change place we are going next month i just hope i will be able to open the hood again.
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I would suggest for now focus on the hood latch because [ not if but when ] it break’s it will be at a inconvenient time and be laber intensive to open if it break’s while the hood is still latched.
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very true, it going to be our next thing we have to get done for sure, the shop said they will try to find us one, he did say he had a way to get in for now but that was a year ago, i think he is removing the panel of the car right next to the hood latch handle because i noticed it was loose. He must be by passing the handle and just pulling the cable.
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I had one like that year’s back I cut the bad part of and had enough left so I could drill a hole through the inside fender to run it through and put a loop in it to open the hood from the outside.
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i forget which brand it is, but our neighbor had the same problem we are having. Thanks for letting me know, I will check out autozone plus i think advanced auto does the same.
Thank you for letting me know i will tell our shop about that if they can’t find the part. I wonder if we take off the grill right under the hood latch could that work to, then maybe we could just reach under to release it.
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Don’t take unnecessary risks with the virus, two of my friends have died of it and one was very fit and healthy.
Don’t mess around with a bad hood release, depending on the car once these fail you can be looking at significant labor to reopen them and in the mean time you won’t be able to check and refill fluids. If the Ford/Mercury dealership can’t get you one there should be plenty in junk yards. There are on-line inventory systems for used parts that mechanics and body shops use and my independent mechanic has done this for me on several occasions, Craigslist is another source of used parts. Ask you mechanic to call around and if they won’t do this find a mechanic who will. If the exact part can’t be found then have them rig something that’s solid, but the prayer method doesn’t work very well for mechanical objects. Consider a body shop for this.
As for your electrical problem, find a mechanic who understands electrical systems (as opposed to just plugging in automated test equipment), tell them the history and have them check the whole system - there are many possibilities including some other part of the system causing excessive “parasitic” drainage. Batteries are marked with date codes, check when buying (or having one installed), it’s good practice not to accept one over 6mo. old, newer is better.
You’ve mentioned several problems, does this car suffer from deferred maintenance? You might consider having a conscientious mechanic look it over and advise you on what else is either overdue or coming up. How about fluid changes (when was the last time you changed coolant, brake fluid, transmission fluid), differential oil, what shape are they in? When did you last change coolant and heater hoses? If you don’t drive much these should be changed on time intervals as their additives wear out, they become contaminated, etc. Tires with low wear can be too old, rubber deteriorates.
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i’m sorry to hear that two of your friends have died, this is such a scary time, it think it best my mom stays home and i go to the repair shop myself, we always go together. Before this pandemic hit we always got the oil changed every 6 months like clock work. They do check all the fluids. But like i said it going to be a year since we went but we will be going to a drive thru oil change place where they let you stay in your car so we will be sure to ask them to check all the fluids. I think if we pay our neighbor he will install a new hood latch switch but i will have to ask him if he knows how he just became a mechanic, we do have another neighbor who is a body man and he has a old car to so maybe we will ask him to give us a price.
If the hood latch is hard to open those can quite often be adjusted a bit due to wiggle room in the mounting bolt holes followed by a little grease on the latch mechanism. Makes a world of difference in the amount of strength required to pull the handle.
Good luck with finding the hood part. I’m sure something will turn up. If you use a drive-thru quickie oil change place, make sure to check that the oil is at the proper level before driving away from their establishment. Sometimes things get overlooked.
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Sounds like the cable itself is frayed, in my opinion . .
If so, it’s just a matter of time before that last strand breaks, and then it may be “a little tricky” to open the hood at all
I’ll just pipe in a little but if the cable is only being held together by a couple strands and breaking is inevitable, once it does, that will be a big problem. A little preventive action is needed pretty much now.
Now the only thing that pops into my mind is that a close to 30 year old car, when it is your only means of transportation, and you are not mechanical enough to fix it yourself, and you rely on said car, is not a good situation to be in. I know money is always an issue, otherwise people wouldn’t keep these things going, but really maybe it is simply time to get something newer or completely new with the price of used cars. There just comes a point. If you are self-reliant and can take care of everything that’s one thing, but if you are at the mercy of AAA, neighbors, mechanics, just not a good place to be is all.
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So true after all this i was thinking of going to school to become a mechanic myself so i wouldn’t need anyone lol. My moms car only has 33 thousand miles on it and my mom loves it because my Grandmother got it for her plus right now we can’t afford another car. But there is one thing that makes all the difference to us and that is The Lord Jesus Christ, if it wasn’t for Him we could have gotten stuck at the store and due to the virus AAA will not let anyone ride in their tow truck. Each time our battery failed it happen at our house, thank God. And this last time it would have been a real nightmare because it took to 2 days for AAA to come out we could have been stranded at Target. He always works things our for our good. So once again i will ask Him to help us and get us to the right place to fix the hood latch. I don’t know were i would be right now if it wasn’t for His intervention and sure we should have gotten the hood latch fixed sooner but that won’t stop Him from still coming through for us. I want to thank everyone for all their good advice and kindness taking the time to help me, and i want to thank the Lord Jesus Christ who always comes through for us even when i don’t deserve it.
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It sounds like you are in better hands than even with Allstate.
Learning how to do mechanic work can be a good, pretty well paid profession. I would also recommend lessons in basic electronics since todays cars use so much to run them. It will be interesting to see what happens to vehicle design going into the future.
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I don’t know what GOD does all day but I would rather he worry about children with fatal disease than where some ones battery fails.
Oh I’m sure he does that too. Not a fatal disease but came close to death a couple times as a kid and felt that invisible presence.
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God worries about everything, the bible says " when a sparrow falls from a tree God sees it" The bible also says He holds the seven sea in the palm of HIs Hand so i think a God that big can handle it all at the same time. God will help everybody and anybody who calls on His Name. Any yes He wasn’t going to let my disabled mother who is not feeling well get struck in a parking lot with a bad battery in the middle of the night.
lol i love that, and all i can say is Amen. i guess i will learn mechanic work as a hobby because i believe God has called me to be a artist which in this economy is a little crazy but God will make it happen.
He needs to have a auto parts or battery supplier check it for him. When I was transferred to a new factory in SC some years ago and we hired local production workers, we had to teach them how to read a ruler, how to read meters, how to connect meter wires, the meaning of polarity, DC, AC, etc. But they knew how to use a smartphone and access the Internet.