Friday, February 02, 2007

What's The Whistling In My Ear?

The whistle is back, along with the loss of hearing. Magic. Another trip to Doc Teaspoon is on the cards then. I haven't had this much fun since me leg went septic.

On the plus side, my Hyundai dealership finally fitted a wheel to my car that matched the other three instead of being just enough too large to cause the hubcap to disengage from the rim and make the new wheel look like I got it from a scrap yard.

On Monday I noticed thet the other sub-great thing that the eagle-eyed mechanics of Huntington Hyundai had allowed me to drive off the lot with1. The new wheel that had cost me deep in t'purse had a raised inner boss that was about 1/2-3/4 of an inch too high, causing the hubcap (held onto the wheel by the wheelnuts) to disengage from the rim.

I girded my loins with cheap girders and had a think on how I might make my case to any willfully unobservant staff, coming up with the idea that a straightedge laid across the wheel would allow me to measure the difference in profile between the center and rim of the wheel with a dial caliper. Another five minutes of running the scenario though Mr Brain had me convinced I should provide said straightedge and caliper, lest the same mechanic who "fitted" the wheel attempt to measure it with a steam-powered fairground pipe-organ2 so I loaded an offcut of laminate-backed chipboard I use as a clamp extension when gluing large items together (it is long and flat) into the trunk of the Steviemobile and threw Mr Dial Caliper into my bag and sallied forth.

The service manager (ibid) threw me off balance by immediately confessing that the wheel was indeed the wrong shape and offered to get a replacement fitted. This meant sending offsite again (ibid). Although it would "only take an hour or so" I had been caught in that one before (ibid) and so I left the car overnight and tok a "loaner".The loaner was a luxury sedan, but I still prefer the snugger Steviemobile.

The satisfaction of having my car back with four working wheels (finally) almost overcame my annoyance at having a possible tool deployment scenario ruined by unreasonably reasonable people.

  1. The other thing can be found by reading "A Simple Three Thousand Mile Service And A State Inspection" from last month's archive
  2. A dial caliope. Ahahaha

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