We left the Walmart in Greenville, TX about 7:45AM. We had forgotten the virtues of living in the desert until we stopped for the night last night - - - HUMIDITY ! ! ! Guess we better get used to the sticky, warm weather. We've also noticed no more Stucco houses. The majority of houses in the Ft Worth/Dallas area are brick and have steep pitched roofs. You'd think we were back in Alaska where they have 15 feet of snow. This area around Sulfur Springs is very green with lots of trees and rolling hills unlike the flat, boring sand of West Texas. The on and off ramps on I-20 and I-30 come off onto a frontage road that runs along the interstate but most are very short so it makes it difficult to get up to speed to merge on and slow down to get off. We hadn't gone but about 10 miles when I noticed that the truck was acting funny and didn't seem to be able to keep the speed set on the cruise control. When I pushed the accelerator to the floor it was very slow to accelerate and didn't seem to be kicking into passing gear. I thought maybe the transmission fluid was low so pulled off at a rest area to check it.
While slowing down in the rest area, and before we could find a parking place, THE ENGINE DIED ! ! ! I tried to restart it but no avail. Fortunately it was fairly empty and I was able to coast into a parking spot. After several attempts to restart this piece of S_ _ t, I gave up and called the tow company. Brings back memories of The Yukon, BC. Only good thing is the cell phones still work. The tow truck finally arrived about an hour later and after about an hour and a half, we finally got hooked up and towed to the Ford dealer in Mt Pleasant, where Matt dropped the truck and then towed our 5th wheel to a KOA to wait. Poor guy ran into trouble disconnecting the drive shaft because some of the bolts had been stripped when they put it back on in Whitehorse, The Yukon. Of course it was hotter than heck and humid and not a fun job for him. What a nice guy! The truck is supposed to be looked at about 4:00PM and we'll find out the verdict. Hopefully it's not too serious. When the problem happened, I got no 'Check Engine Light' and all the gauges looked normal. The truck just seemed to loose power. Hopefully it's something simple like a plugged fuel filter although I had it changed before we left but maybe we got some bad fuel. Even that makes me nervous because that means it could be in the fuel tank and happen again. Oh Well - I guess it could be worse and we don't HAVE to be anywhere at a certain time or date. Jason from the Ford dealer called about 5:30PM and said they found the problem and should have the part by 10:AM tomorrow. Some support on the high pressure fuel pump bracket broke. Fortunately it's covered by the Ford 100k drive train warranty so all we'll have to pay is a $100 deductible. So with luck we'll back on the road tomorrow unless the KOA here makes us pay another day, since checkout is 11:00AM, in which case we'll leave Saturday AM.
We left the Walmart in Greenville, TX about 7:45AM. We had forgotten the virtues of living in the desert until we stopped for the night last night - - - HUMIDITY ! ! ! Guess we better get used to the sticky, warm weather. We've also noticed no more Stucco houses. The majority of houses in the Ft Worth/Dallas area are brick and have steep pitched roofs. You'd think we were back in Alaska where they have 15 feet of snow. This area around Sulfur Springs is very green with lots of trees and rolling hills unlike the flat, boring sand of West Texas. The on and off ramps on I-20 and I-30 come off onto a frontage road that runs along the interstate but most are very short so it makes it difficult to get up to speed to merge on and slow down to get off. We hadn't gone but about 10 miles when I noticed that the truck was acting funny and didn't seem to be able to keep the speed set on the cruise control. When I pushed the accelerator to the floor it was very slow to accelerate and didn't seem to be kicking into passing gear. I thought maybe the transmission fluid was low so pulled off at a rest area to check it.
While slowing down in the rest area, and before we could find a parking place, THE ENGINE DIED ! ! ! I tried to restart it but no avail. Fortunately it was fairly empty and I was able to coast into a parking spot. After several attempts to restart this piece of S_ _ t, I gave up and called the tow company. Brings back memories of The Yukon, BC. Only good thing is the cell phones still work. The tow truck finally arrived about an hour later and after about an hour and a half, we finally got hooked up and towed to the Ford dealer in Mt Pleasant, where Matt dropped the truck and then towed our 5th wheel to a KOA to wait. Poor guy ran into trouble disconnecting the drive shaft because some of the bolts had been stripped when they put it back on in Whitehorse, The Yukon. Of course it was hotter than heck and humid and not a fun job for him. What a nice guy! The truck is supposed to be looked at about 4:00PM and we'll find out the verdict. Hopefully it's not too serious. When the problem happened, I got no 'Check Engine Light' and all the gauges looked normal. The truck just seemed to loose power. Hopefully it's something simple like a plugged fuel filter although I had it changed before we left but maybe we got some bad fuel. Even that makes me nervous because that means it could be in the fuel tank and happen again. Oh Well - I guess it could be worse and we don't HAVE to be anywhere at a certain time or date. Jason from the Ford dealer called about 5:30PM and said they found the problem and should have the part by 10:AM tomorrow. Some support on the high pressure fuel pump bracket broke. Fortunately it's covered by the Ford 100k drive train warranty so all we'll have to pay is a $100 deductible. So with luck we'll back on the road tomorrow unless the KOA here makes us pay another day, since checkout is 11:00AM, in which case we'll leave Saturday AM.
4 comments:
So sorry, I don't understand, cause it doesn't sound like Judy was driving this time. Dave
You've got a great memory for an OLD guy, Dave - your also a smart ass !!!
Is that thing covered by the lemon law? Hope the rest of your trip goes without incident.
No self respecting Conservative would afford themselves of the lemon law as it was named for two Democrats (Moss/Magnuson) who drafted/sponced it and it signed into law by President Carter. Add to that Arizona has not enacted a state law so AZ residents would have to file a claim in Federal court. As Bob said above!!!!
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