Thursday - July 11, 2013

Housebound

I am a pedestrian today.

My wife’s car had the good grace to break down at the service station last night, right in front of the late working mechanics. So they looked at it right away, and determined that the camshaft and crankshaft position sensors were going bad. This is a fairly common problem on the 2.5L Nissan engine; the original sensors were plastic and tended to leak oil around one of the electric connector pins, shorting out the part. Which means that the engine stops dead. Let it cool off and drain the oil back for a bit, and they start right up again, as I proved when I stopped off at the gas station and started her car right up in the parking lot. Still, she chose to have the parts replaced, and I can’t fault that decision.

Nissan uses the same sensor for both locations, and the “new” version of the part is now tightly enclosed in a little metal can. about $30 each for quality aftermarket parts, and one of the sensors is actually dead easy to get to. A 5 minute job with just a 10mm socket. The other one is a bit fussy for DIY, an hour’s worth of blood and swearing, but easy if you can put the car on a lift. Aftermarket companies have been making the “new” version for nearly a decade now, so I’m quite hopeful that the mechanics will source one of those from their NAPA dude. [fast online research - OMG the internet rocks! - shows 2 in stock at the parts guy 1/2 mile away. Sweet.]

So she had to take my lumpy old Saturn to work - rock solid dependable after 17 years - and that leaves me here with just sneaker power.

Oh well. Guess I’ll be doing housework today.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/11/2013 at 10:11 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • planes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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