Pluggers by Rick McKee for January 08, 2025

You’re a plugger if you don’t work, and neither does your car.

Pluggers get very old cars with simple engines and manual transmissions. Then get it registered as an antique and promise to drive it less than 1,000 miles/year.

Sadly the speedometer broke and parts are on back order…….

This is obviously a new class of plugger if it has a check engine light instead of gauges. Or, indeed, an engine management computer rather than a carburetor.

The only time there’s a computer in a plugger’s car is when he has a calculator in his pocket.

The malfunctions are likely due to Gremlins.

Pluggers gots computer in car?

My car is 10+ years old and works better than I do.

Which we still had gauges instead of Idiot lights. With a gauge one can watch for trends such as is the battery charging ;-)

Earl just solved this problem…

Right! “Maintenance required soon.” How soon, and what??

Do Pluggers own vehicles with an ‘Engine’ warning light?

Plugger traced it back to his Die Hard battery.

If you have a second genoration Prius, you can push the starter button three times, without touching the brake, turn on the lights, clap three times, and start the air conditioner, hit the brake, and maybe the warning lights will go off.

I hate those things, it can be used by a real scam.

LOL!

You’re a Plugger if your wife tells you the check engine light is on, and you say “Well? Did you check it? Was it there?”

It rarely gets that bad but in most older cars there is at least one warning light that never goes off.

Mine has been on for 5 years, wish it would burn out soon.

my truck has one that will light up red with a lightning bolt over the check engine light if something big time serious is going on. Haven’t seen it… yet… thank goodness!

If not the check engine light, then have the speedometer cluster lights burn out. “Just” need to disable the air-bag, remove the dash panel, the inside firewall, blah blah blah, just to replace a $10 unit. I used the flashlight mode on cellphone to see how fast I was going instead.

Oh, rust and smoke, the heater’s brokeThe door just blew awayI light a match to see the dashAnd then I start to pray, HEY!The frame is bent, the muffler wentThe radio, it’s okayOh, what fun it is to driveThis rusty Chevrolet

We have a 2013 car. It actually replaced a 2012 version of the same model when we were in an accident which totaled the 2012 and we got away without a scratch.

Unfortunately it has known engine problems. Of course the dealer and the manufacturer came up with ways to avoid fixing anything. (Would need for them to come up with a new engine design and replace the one we have which has the known problem.) So we keep driving it as we have not found anything to get instead. We spend Sunday afternoons checking the “oil catch can” which we had added to the car to catch the oil leaking into the engine which was what was damaging the engine. After managing it get the can out (we are both short – our mechanic who is tall does not have a problem reaching it) as it has to be grasped from the bottom of the can, turned and removed from its lid which stays in place. The oil and water mix in it has to be dumped out and the inside of the can dried out. The can has to then be put back in place – again by holding it on its bottom which, again is hard for us to do as it requires reaching far down into the engine and again – we are both short.

There was a class action suit, but settlement was car would be brought to the dealer for an “oil consumption test”. Husband thought this was some big deal test. I had an idea that it was not. We had just replaced the lost oil. Brought car to dealer. Test was drain oil out & refill it (our cost of course). Then to bring the car every 1000 miles for them to check if any oil lost& how much. No one could replace oil or we would need to start over – so no taking it on a trip anywhere. Suppose to bring the car into the dealer every 1000 miles and they measure the “oil consumption”. Husband or our mechanic would test the oil before we brought it in for a “test” and it would down a considerable amount. The solution to the problem? Dealer added oil and said come back again in a month.

So basically the “test” was a joke. They did not even measure how much oil had been “consumer”, just poured more in. Husband decided it was not worth the gas to drive to the dealer and home again and the wasted time waiting for them to get to us and then to do the test, so we check the oil every Sunday and add the missing oil.

Second class action suit – same solution. We trust our mid 1980s van more than the car. We were taking my mom who lives in a nursing home in the next county to various doctors she needed to go to. My biggest fear was the car would die while we were out there with her. I would have to take her to the nursing home by taxi. Then somehow get to a train station, take a train back to our county. Then take a bus from the station on the north shore of the Island towards the south shore where we live. Then walk about 3 or 4 miles to get home from the bus stop (as that bus does not connect with the one which stops on our corner). The get our van and drive back to the other county to pick up my husband who was where the car broke down.

Hopefully we will find a replacement car before it one dies and leaves us stranded somewhere – not found one yet.