Brad and I were talking with family about mechanics in the area and this is what Brad said "I know a good one in Price." For those who don't know Brad or anything about Utah geography, this was completely sarcastic. Here is the story behind it:
One of Brad's co-workers talked about wanting to take his family down to Goblin Valley State Park to hike a slot canyon. Brad mentioned that he has hiked Ding and Dang Canyon (yes that is the legit names) several times and that it is less busy than Crazy Horse (the popular slot canyon). So his co-worker, Craig, asked Brad to come on the trip to be their tour guide. Brad never passes up a trip to Goblin Valley so he said yes. Brad invited our bro-in-law Eric to go as well.
So Friday (June 22nd) the boys gathered their supplies and left a little after noon. Now I had rented The Vow and was planning a nice girls night with Brad's mom and sisters. At about 3:30 Jody, who's husband Eric went with Brad, asked me if I thought they would make it down to Goblin Valley. I looked at her funny and said "Of course, they are probably almost there." Jody then told me that they were in Price because something happened to the car (my Civic). Well, Eric had apparently already text Jody about this but Brad had yet to call me. At about 4pm I get a call from Brad and he tells me that after getting up the mountains to Price the check engine light came on. He found a mechanic in Price who ran a diagnostic test on the car that said the VTEC failed. VTEC is my car's engine. Fantastic! So Brad got referred to a different mechanic who said that it could simply be that the car needed an oil change (it was about due for one), new oil filter, etc or it could be a whole list of other bigger issues. The mechanic said that 60% of the time he saw this error changing the oil fixed it. While changing the oil they also recommended an engine flush cause it looked pretty bad. So, $140 later Brad and Eric drove the car around a bit and it seemed to be working fine, so they decided to continue on to Goblin Valley.
Brad says the mechanic was really nice and that everyone they came across seemed to love having new people to talk to. While waiting for the car, Brad and Eric went to Taco Bell where Brad says that they double the lunch rush. Yea, Price is slow like that. When they left, the mechanic gave him his number and told Brad to call if he needed a tow because he would love an excuse to get away from his girlfriend.
Well the boys made it safely to Goblin Valley and had no other car issues. Brad just drove slow the whole way so they got there late. Saturday Brad led Eric, Craig and his family through Ding and Dang canyon and had a fun time. They even got to help a couple other groups out who had no idea how to climb a slot canyon. Everything was going great, until they were driving back and had to go over the wonderful Price mountains again. The engine light came back on. Brad called me to let me know. At that point I really hated mountains and thought my car was broken. Brad told me to go an get 2 new tires put on his Civic because he figured that I would be driving his car to work Monday while he took mine to a shop. I went and got the new tires put on that we had been planning to do a little later. I also had his alternator tested because Brad's car had been making a funny sound, however the alternator and battery were good. Brad and Eric drove really slow back home and Brad went to researching the issue.
Brad changed the air filter and did some other stuff under the hood. Lots of stress later, Brad had me drive my car to work, but he told me not to let the RPMs get above 3500. Basically, this meant that I could not accelerate fast. So a slow drive to work later, and worrying the whole time about driving that far with the engine light on, I made it to work and back home just fine. Tuesday on my drive to work, the engine light came off. Brad talked to his buddy who knows a lot about cars and his buddy told him that the car will do system checks and if it goes through 9 cycles with no issues, it will turn the engine light off on it's own. My light has not come back on and a mechanic said most likely the clog in the engine was cleared and all is good.
Good ending to my car, unfortunately Brad's car still made a weird sound and on his way to work Wednesday it started acting weird. So Thursday we took his car in and found out that the timing belt was barely holding on and the mechanic was seriously shocked the car was still running. Apparently the pulley thing that holds the timing belt was bent to the point it was barely holding the belt. If the belt had slipped, the engine would have been toast. So count our blessings we got the car there in time.
We are just crossing our fingers that the car issues are done for now. In one month we spent $1500 on our two cars between 6 new tires, oil change/engine flush, and a new timing belt, serpentine belt, and water pump. Yay!
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