I was reminded of a couple of life lessons I've learned over the years in the past month or so.
Mr. Lincoln is my wife's SUV. He's a white 2005 Lincoln Navigator. I bought him used last summer (it's kind of hard justifying the price tag on a new one of those). He's a really nice truck, as Lincoln's should be. Heated and cooled seats, great sound system, power everything and automatic everything. He is the most sure footed thing I've ever driven in snow, even though we hardly had anything this past winter to really test him - we did have one evening of shear crap on the road and folks were slip-sliding everywhere, but not us!
About two months ago we started having problems where the battery was dying on us. I took it over to an auto parts store and had them hook it up to their battery/alternator tester and it came back indicating the draw from the alternator was weak. So I bought an alternator and had my nephew install it. After that didn't work we bought a new battery since the old one was no longer holding a charge. That still didn't fix the problem and it was suggested to me to check all of the wiring between the alternator and the battery. We did that and found the plug into the alternator had the retention clip broken. $35 dollars later a new harness was installed. That didn't fix the problem so we tried replacing the battery terminals as the positive terminal appeared loose. All of our attempts proved futile and the battery continued to drain. Finally crying 'uncle' as my nephew and I had run out of ideas to try I scheduled an appointment with a Lincoln dealership to have them perform a battery drain test.
I had purchased the battery/alternator harness wiring from Bob Boyd Lincoln off of Sawmill Road. While there I struck up a conversation with the Service Department manager and we talked about various things I was experiencing with Mr. Lincoln, what I might expect over the next few years and other odds and ends. Rick was a pleasant gentleman who wasn't afraid to candy coat issues that I have been experiencing or may in the future. I felt good about what I had experienced with that brief encounter at BBL and decided to take Mr. Lincoln there for the diagnostic review. The service department advised me it may take a few days to look everything over and to find the source of the problem. I told them that was fine and was on my way. After the weekend was over and Tuesday had come I was back in touch with the service department and they had advised me the problem with Mr. Lincoln was an improperly installed battery terminal and that I could pick him up that afternoon. My wife and I drove over to pick him up. I paid less than I had expected for the diagnosis and repair and was waiting for the service department to pull up with my vehicle. After waiting a few minutes the driver came back into the service department without my truck. It wouldn't start! Rick was there and handled the whole situation. He asked us a few additional questions about Mr. Lincoln, decided that the fix they tried obviously wasn't the problem and based on the fact that our rear wiper wasn't working or only working intermittently he was going to focus his review there. In the meantime, for our inconvenience, he gave us a loaner car (a 2011 MKZ) to drive until they were sure of the problem and solution. Keep in mind, I didn't buy Mr. Lincoln from BBL. The next day I received a call from Rick informing me that the wiper was in fact the culprit and it had been fixed at no additional cost to me.
During these frustrating few weeks for my wife and I one of my wife's coworkers was asking her why we were putting up with all of these problems with Mr. Lincoln and why we hadn't just sold him.
Here comes lesson #1 - You don't give up on a relationship at the first sign of trouble. You have to try to work through things and see how they turn out before you throw in the towel on something or someone.
Now for lesson #2 - Sometimes you can't fix everything yourself. On occasion you must put your faith in the professionals to help tackle the bigger issues.
And lesson #3 - you can find good people in places you'd least expect.
As an afterthought - that MKZ was a sweet little car. It was the base model MKZ and had plenty of features that would make me a happy owner. The Sync system is impressive and easy to set up to my iPhone. I was able to stream my music wirelessly, make and receive phone calls. I didn't have much time to try out the other Sync features. If you've never had cooled seats in your car give them a try. Or better yet, don't. Once you have you'll want them in everything you drive. The sound system was really good. It was a V6 and had plenty of power and the ride was silky smooth. All in all a really nice little ride, just what you'd expect in a luxury car - even a base model one.
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