I really hate to laugh at a problem when your far from home but that is messed up.

 

Yeah... Tell me about it. Lol. I can laugh about it now, but I was pretty hot about it at the time. So... sequence of events:


1- Truck stalls in the middle of the intersection to get on Interstate 90 in Butte, Montana.


2- Autozone is seconds from closing, (a 8 pm...?) so, seeing that all systems are functioning, minus the spark, and no time to further diagnose, I bought a ASD relay... Or so I thought. - More on that to come.


3- Autozone closes as I identify the source of the problem: Coil wire laid on the exhaust manifold and melted, grounded out, and caused a no-spark situation.


4- I move my #2 cylinder spark plug wire to the hot seat: Used it as a coil wire. This left 7 cylinders and a good coil wire. In theory, enough to start it, and limp it somewhere safer. Truck would then fire, but die within a second.


5- Next morning, I buy new coil wire, demote #2 wire back to its original job. Again. Fires, then dies, fires, then dies.


6-Thinking the melted coil wire fried something else in the ignition system, I also buy new cap and rotor. Same symptoms continue. Fearing another night in Butte, Montana (no offense to residents of there, it just wasn't my destination) I called a nearby shop to plug their scanner into it and run a diagnostic.


7- "Low voltage in ASD relay" Hmmm.... The prior night, I had thrown a new relay on before the new coil wire. Those sons-of-****** sold me a flasher relay, instead of the replacement ASD relay. Hence, the start, die, start, die...ect.


8- Manager of Autozone and I had quite the conversation. I rarely lose my cool, but he had no doubt as to my state of mind when we were finished.
Tow to the Motel : $100.
Unnecessary night in a motel: $89
Unnecessary Cap and Rotor: $36
Tow to shop, their diagnostic time, and scanner use: :$180
Loss of a full day travel time: Buckets full of anger.


Total: $405 and one REALLY mad guy.

 

Damn dude. Atleast you got it fixed. Them guys at Autozone owe you something free for their bad service, lol.