Fixing the VW EuroVan

October 24, 2007: Day 5

Mileage: None

It rained all night as we slept well in the EuroVan in the parking lot of the Hazard Motel in Hazard, KY. He was real proud of that and I sure appreciated the roof over our heads. When we awakened this morning it was raining heavily. And he is beginning to worry about his VW van not running well.

After our trip last year he parked the van for nine months. When we decided to come back out on the road he took her out for a spin and thought it not running well. He added about a half a dozen different fuel additives, but to no avail. He got 16 miles per gallon on his trip up to Rhode Island this month and usually gets 18 so he knows it’s not running right. In Rhode Island he went to a VW garage but they wanted to keep it overnight. So he left. Now on these murderous hills it bogs down, shakes and he needs to manually shift the automatic transmission. I’ve offered to drive and take the pressure off for all this “bad traffic” but he doesn’t trust my driving especially not knowing how to shift the transmission. I tried to tell him I’m shifting through 27 gears on the bike. I haven’t driven the van yet!

He wanted to have the van checked but didn’t want anything other than a VW dealer. So I said give me ten minutes and I’ll be back. I ran into a smiling pleasant lady named Nancy who works housekeeping in the motel as I headed over to he office for a free cup of coffee and information and a shower. I told Nancy I needed a shower in a dirty room before she cleaned it and she took me to room 237 saying they already checked out. She was all apologetic that she didn’t have one cleaned yet! We circled the building clockwise since a counterclockwise route would take us by the motel owner’s apartment. Apparently this was an unauthorized activity. The room didn’t look bad, but there was a full ashtray of ashes sitting on the table. Nancy said, “I forgot to get you a towel.” And she ran out and came back with two clean towels. So I said, “Look, Nancy, you’re giving me a shower, can you do my laundry?” And she said, “Come down to the laundry room when you’re done where my manager has an office and she does laundry.” So Geraldine did my laundry and Nancy arranged a shower and the manager passed out free coffee. So we immediately signed up for a room for tonight.

I called the Ford Garage and the Service Manager said Phillip Newsome used to be a technician at Ford and opened his own shop downtown. Phillip was reported to be trained, pleasant, honest, and hardworking. I called Phillip and he said bring it down. When I got back to the Van having been gone 15 minutes the Trail Boss had all systems ready to roll and said, “You’re late.” And I was five minutes late, but had showered, had coffee, called the garage, and arranged for the laundry—not bad. He agreed to allow someone else to do the laundry and I ran the stuff over to Geraldine and we were off to Huddle House for the second time in two days. He also agreed to take the VW to a non-VW authorized garage.

We had already been past Phillip Newsome’s garage twice in the two days we have been in Hazard. He is an ASE certified mechanic and a wonderfully nice man. He was supervising three other workers who were pulling brakes and bringing parts for his inspection and direction. He and the Trail Boss opened the hood of the van and both dove in. This van has a peculiar radiator that swings on a pivot to give space for access to the plugs and wires and most everything else. The Trail Boss has told me in the past that no one knows how to do the radiator without destroying the headlight wires, so he and Phillip worked together and I have the pictures to prove it. I worked on this journal on my laptop in Phillip’s office. Soon he came in and said there were bad plug wires and he could see them arching. He ordered new wires at NAPA and they will be in town at 10 AM on Thursday. In the meantime he cut off the most offensive wire and repaired it and the van no longer shimmies and shakes and Cimarron the Trail Boss is all smiles as it sure does run better. And I thought it was only the hills. Phillip said, “No charge today, pay tomorrow.”