Just bought a camshaft position sensor.
Am
really incensed at my cousin now.
What's a camshift position sensor for (beyond the obvious!) and what's it got to do with your cousin? I sense a story wanting to be told.
The sensor detects a camshaft's acceleration, deceleration, position and speed. The camshaft is the mechanism that opens the valves that allow gas to enter the cylinder, which is then ignited which causes propulsion. The sensor keeps track of what the camshaft is doing and adjusts accordingly (with the help of the computer) for maximum engine efficiency. If this sensor goes bad, it can cause a whole assortment of engine issues.
As for the story, it goes like this:
About 2 months ago, my cousin's car broke down. Now, she's always been nice to me, she's always been responsible when dealing with me (although she isn't with practically anyone else). Anyway, her car quit working, and she had to go to work the next day. She had already been late twice due to other issues, and a third one (or an absence) would have meant termination from her employer. You see, she has a child who is about 4 years old, and is a single mother, so I felt fine with letting her borrow my car for a couple of days until her weekend off so she could get hers fixed.
3 days turned into 7 weeks. This whole time? Her car wasn't even touched.
All through most of that time she never called me once, I could never catch her at home, I didn't know when she worked, and finally, finally, after 5 weeks she calls me and apologizes for taking so long, and that she will bring me the car the next morning. Okay. Fine. The next morning comes, she doesn't show. I call, no response. I don't hear from her for the next week. She calls and tells me that she had surgery and that she had to use the car, and that she was bringing it tomorrow. I made her promise, made her
swear on her honor she would. She never showed up the next day. Or the next week. Finally, I called her and told her that I would be heading up that way with a friend, and that I would swing by and pick up the car. I told her I would be there in an hour and that she must be there in that hour.
I got to her apartment and she was there. So I tell her I'm leaving with the car (I am, as always, very polite). She asks me if I could take her to the license bureau because she needed to renew her registration. I was aghast. However, I knew that if I didn't, she wouldn't be able to get her renewal, which was due
that day, I might add. So not only was she irresponsible enough to neglect bringing my car back to me 6 3/4 weeks late, she also waited until the last second to get her license and registration renewed,
knowing she was supposed to bring me the car the previous week, and the week before that. I knew in my heart of hearts she had fully intended to hold onto that car as long as possible.
So I took her to the license bureau and then took her back to her apartment. The whole time she's laying on a sob story about difficulty with work, about money, about her responsibilities, and fortunately for me, once I am aware that someone's trying to manipulate me, I'm a tight ass. You won't get a penny from me, or any more goodwill. So all of her story fell on deaf ears.
I dropped her off, and her little boy says to me "but how is mommy going to get to work?" I told him I didn't know, and that his mommy will have to figure that out (very kindly and politely of course, because it's not like
he did anything wrong). Also, I knew he had been trained to say that, because while he's a sweet little boy, he's a little behind when it comes to development, and that's the most circumspect way of putting it. I do think he's wonderful, but he wasn't going to be used as a pawn by his mother to manipulate me. Again, I'm a
tight ass when it comes to people trying to manipulate me after I'm aware of it.
So, I get my car back and drive it home. It has no gas left (I had enough to get to a station two blocks up the road once I dropped her off and left), there is a distinct knocking in the car's engine that was not there before, and now get this, there were
4200 additional miles on the odometer. Not to mention the car has trash in it, there is smoke smell everywhere, even though I am sensitive to smoke (born with bronchitis) and can smell it a mile away, AND I told her never to smoke in my car, to which she promised not to do, and now there's a smoke smell that simply won't come out. I've tried odorizers, scented trees, carpet shampooing, nothing.
So I start cleaning out my car (lots of gummy, slimy, grimy, sticky, dirt, dust), buffing out the numerous scratches that were not there when I loaned it to her, and just working to bring my car up to my standard of operation.
So that gets done and I'm thinking "finally, close to normalcy". This was last week (well, the week before now, since it's Monday). Last Monday, my car starts acting odd. She starts overheating after only two minutes of driving. She shuts off at random times, and the temp gauge just starts going wild. I check the coolant tank, it was empty. I was shocked! So my Dad and my Uncle looks at it and says it looks like she probably drove it around for hundreds of miles
with an empty coolant tank. The machine they run later to diagnose the car proves this.
So me and dad check all the fluids (the only reason we didn't before is that the car sat there for a few days before I tried to take it out anywhere and that's when we found out). Before I had loaned her the car, I had just had the oil changed and all the fluids topped off (checking this myself), so it wasn't me. Anyway, the oil was sludge, the coolant tank was empty, the other fluids were okay, but what concerned them most was that there was water in the oil.
Dad figured it was a busted
head gasket. So he and my Uncle take a look and tell me that it's not the head gasket. The diagnostic machine says that it's one of two easy to repair things. It's either a bad camshaft position sensor, or a bad coolant level sensor. However, it also states that major issue may be a cracked
cylinder head which would be extremely expensive to repair. I am unemployed. There is no way to repair something like that within any reasonable time frame. So we're trying the camshaft position sensor first. If it works, and everything runs okay, then I am going to sell it and use that money to make a down payment on a used car. It's all I can do.
I am very angry with my cousin, and what's worse, is that she seems oblivious. She knew full well what she was doing, and she took advantage of my kindness. She may think she got away with it, but she hasn't. She will never get my help again. I cannot trust her, and so I am incensed at the cost to me, while I know she could never possibly pay it because she's too irresponsible to manage it.
No wonder her parents still get mad at her even though she's
37. She still does completely irresponsible and stupid things all the time!
