It is time for me to renew by tabs. But before I do, I have to visit an Emissions Tesing Stations here in Washington to have my emissions on my car tested. We have to do this every other year and it only costs $15. It is one of the differences I came across when moving from another state. In CA in 1993 we would visit one of my car repair shops that could run an emissions test, fill out a form and sign it, and we would send it to DMV or where you pay for tabs. I don't know if that has changed or not there. But here, we go to an official station that the state set ups and runs. There are only a few in the area, so you try to go when there isn't many people doing the same thing. It looks like one can online see if there are many people at certain stations. Anyway, I went to one of the stations one day when I was out on my deliveries this week. I paid my $15 and was brought into the area where they test things out. I got out of the car and sat down to wait. However the guy said that he couldn't do the test because he could NOT find my car computer registering on his equipment. (What?) The car runs fine... there hasn't been any problems. So they gave me back the $ and told me to come back later.
So, I wasn't far from a mechanic where my husband had just had one of our cars checked out and repaired. It was around Christmas or just before. This was a new place ran by a dad and his two sons. They named the business "Honest Mechanics" which I thought was good advertising especially for women. They seemed to be honest too. Very helpful to Dave. The owner had also driven home our car to test it after fixing it. OK, so he would be able to help me figure things out with the lack of a computer reading I thought wouldn't you? I pulled into the driveway and parked the car... but I noticed that there weren't very many cars so I thought maybe I came on a day they were closed for whatever reason. The signs for the business were up and it's banners were all in place. Plus there were some tires stacked on top of each other but there wasn't anything in the lobby or office. They had moved out. There was the sign that posted when they were open but everything inside was gone. (What?) OK... Number two weird thing to happen within the same half hour.
I decided to go back to the college where I work. I couldn't believe what I had seen... or didn't see. Anyway, at the college we have an automotive program so I drove to the garage to see if any of the instructors could help me out. They had a student that is learning electronical systems for his certification so he started working on the problem. They took off the battery cover and there was this big fuzzy glob of corrosion as large as a man's fist. We all stood there amazed at what we saw... like it was a monster or something. (What?) As far as they were concerned, they didn't think that the car should have been running at all with all of that on the battery... but it was. Amazing really. So I got another battery today and they put it in. Hopefully the new battery will fix the problem and my car will pass emissions. I will drive it around tomorrow and then I will have the emissions test done again. Weird, huh?
Until tomorrow... Hugs
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