Ever have one of those mornings?

I hate it when it seems that all my E36 M3 breaks at once.

Replaced the thermostat in the MS3 this past weekend. Filled it with new coolant, burped the system, filled again. No leaks.
Installed SSP and new Map sensor the next night. Ran it really hard. No leaks.

Drove it to work and back on Monday through some back roads. No leaks.

Come out this morning there's a a large puddle of coolant laying on the floor. Pull the expansion tank cap off and coolant comes shooting out of the drain cock onto the under tray. What the actual berkeley?

Of course no one has the drain plug in stock and the plug is in a terrible position and it's required to be extracted with a set of needle nose pliers.

Naturally the I figured the car was good after three days so the Vibe is flayed open for it's brake job and master cylinder replacement. So I had to take the wife's car to work today and she's less than pleased.

Point of this? Just complaining that I need to exchange the expensive coolant again, after the part comes in on Thursday, and I hate delayed failures like that.

But the motor did not overheat. So this is actually a very good thing.

My daily driver 540it has been telling me to check the coolant pretty much every single day, even though it's got plenty of coolant... probably a bad sensor in the expansion tank, but I don't feel like removing the expansion tank and draining all the coolant to replace it. Oh and having to drain all the coolant to replace the water-cooled alternator is lots of fun too. And then there's the excessively long bleeding procedure I have to do after messing with the cooling system or else the car overheats. BMW coolant is $26/gallon at the cheapest. I feel your pain.

I had a starter die this morning. spent a hour this morning rebuilding it.

My last 2 weeks.

• Failed plastic fitting on VW - fixed then coolant sensor leaked
• replaced o-ring on coolant sensor
• coolant sensor blows out and dumps about 2L of coolant on the road at work
• Going on vacation with my boys- get to campsite and realize that the bike rack as caused the welds to break on borrowed trailer
• Pulled into camp site hear a weird clicking and squealing from Explorer - open hood and burning smell
• Leave campsite this morning and drive an hour to the nearest Ford Dealer keeping the revs below 2K rpm
• AC Compressor failed $1400 for replacement
• Sitting in mall waiting for work to get done, so we can get back to vacationing!

Yeah - not been a good time!

Last one I had that annoyed me was needing to buy the tools to swap an alternator because I didn't have tools with me. And I was starting to get closer to the middle of nowhere and wouldn't finish the trip before dark, so I couldn't risk the failing alternator dying completely.

I'd totally forgotten about it being about 100k miles since I'd last replaced the alternator brushes in the Jeep... That seems to be about how long they last for me. I figured out very quickly what happened when the alternator cut out and I realized that hitting it with a mag-lite made it work again. The decision to replace before finishing the trip was made when the first smack got me about 40 minutes, but the subsequent ones didn't last as long. By the time I got the new one and installed it, we were down to 15 - 20 minutes of working after hitting it.

This morning I planned to drive the FX16 to work. It sits a lot and needs a little exercise. So I get in and 'click'. No start! Rats! Did I mention it sits a lot?

Option 1) Go back in the house and get the Focus keys and drive that.

Option 2) Get the Focus and jump the FX16 and drive it anyway.

Option 3) Push the FX16 into the side street which goes downhill and jump it.

Went with Option 3. Fired right off and drove to work.

Once I got to work, I got an email stating I have 2 months of free SiriusXM radio. All because I had the door latch recall on the Focus serviced at the dealer. Yippee!

Sorry to rain on your parade!

Not in a while thankfully. Back when my wife had her s10 the radiator died the same morning the rear wheel locked up on my sundance backing out of the drive. Figured screw it ill take the spare vehicle too work. Yeah the slave cylinder froze so the clutch wont engage or disengage.

Sold the spare vehicle and fixed the other 2 that night.