I’ve been dealing with a car problem that no one has been able to fix. I’ve been to three mechanics without success.
My car is an Infiniti J30. It’s been a great car for me. Sleek styling, great performance, and a Bose sound system that makes listening to music sound like a concert hall experience.
But this problem has been a nightmare. It’s with the electrical system. It seems that only one headlight works. But it is not a headlight problem. Sometimes the right one works. Sometimes the left. And when the car sits over night, the battery gets drained (due to this electrical problem), forcing me to jump it. So every night, to prevent the battery from going dead, I disconnect it.
Because my wife is out of town with our other car, I have been driving the last few days only in the daytime. I hear that the police around here are not friendly and don’t want to risk being pulled over. But I need the car tonight to meet my daughter for dinner. And though I am not a mechanic, I went outside this morning determined to fix it myself. I thought perhaps I might hit something at just the right place and fix the problem.
This reminds me of a story a high priced consultant once told me that some of you may know. It’s about a ship that had an engine that wouldn’t work:
The ship’s owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure but how to fix the engine. Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a youngster. He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.
Two of the ship’s owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed! A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars.
“What?!” the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything!”
So they wrote the old man a note saying, “Please send us an itemized bill.”
The man sent a bill that read:
Tapping with a hammer …………………… $ 2.00
Knowing where to tap ………………………. $ 9998.00
Anyway, after unsuccessfully trying to fix the problem with my car, I started to disconnect the battery so it wouldn’t get drained. But as I loosened the clamp on the negative post of the battery, it triggered a noise from the opposite corner of the engine. So remembering the above story, I took my wrench and tapped on the part of the engine where I heard the noise.
Presto. Problem solved. Lights both work. Nobody knew where to tap but I figured it out. Go figure.
