Cleaning and fixing on the cars....

Where did these last few days go to??   Its been somewhat cool here and Wednesday and Thursday were rainy again...  Good thing I did that big bike ride on Tuesday....

Lets see..... Thursday I went out to the garage and realized that the bike was literally covered in smashed bugs....  Wish there was a carwash for motorcycles.....  Had to drag out the hose and the power washer to spray off those pesky mushy remains of winged creatures....  And a bucket with a bug sponge too....  Lots of soap and suds...

It seems to take longer to wash all the surfaces on the cycle than it does to wash a car....   And then as I was finishing up the clouds opened up and we had a downpour...

I rolled into the garage in the nick of time.....

Later that night after it was dry again, I rode over into DeSoto, Ks to go to a Gold Wing Club meeting....  I had never been to this before, and it was interesting...  But this club has projects and officers and such....  I did pay my dues to the national club, and it seems that covers the whole thing...

But then I found out they have a 50-50 raffle at every club meeting....  So your really donating to the local dues when you participate in that.....

I did have the biggest tenderloin dinner that I had ever seen that night...  Had to cut the thing into halves and bring one of them home....  It was quite good, but.......!

Today I was getting one of the cars worked on at the car dealership...  Had to be there at 9 AM....  And of course the car quit displaying the problem right before I pulled into the garage...  Really Mr repairman, it used to be doing this wrong thing......!

But now days, they have computers, and the error codes were stored right in its memory.....  They called about noon and knew exactly what shenanigans it had been up to...

Its a problem with the headlights, which are computer controlled..  A control module is bad.....  Luckily I have an extended warranty...  And its covered.....

But late in the day, I also learned that the entire car has to have its computer reprogrammed...   So they were keeping it overnight....  But they had provided me with a loaner car to drive in the mean time, and all I have to pay for is gas...

So then right after I learned this, I was reading my email and found a notice from Ford that our SUV needs its computer reprogrammed.... Two in one day?  Now Ford doesn't do this for you....  They expect you to do it......!  This is part of their Sync system... with programs written by Microsoft..

You get out an empty USB memory stick and plug it into your computer....  And of course, it didn't want to work on the Linux operating system machine...  Remember it is by Microsoft...  Have to use a Microsoft computer...  I don't have a Mac to see if it would have worked there, so I can't vouch for that..

So on the PC, I went to the appropriate web site and downloaded the update...  And it was a gigantic file too....  It appeared that the download was verified by the down loader for accuracy as well..

Once out in the car, I plugged in the USB memory stick with the engine running....  And then I sat there for about 30 minutes while it went thru the update routine...  It rebooted about 4 times before I lost count, but eventually it said it was done...  This rebooting process is frightening, as the whole screen goes completely dark for the longest time......

And now my phone is no longer paired with the bluetooth, but the radio presets are still there....  I didn't check about the GPS waypoints, but last time all this stuff was wiped...

Anyway, your not done yet as you have to bring the memory stick back inside and plug it into the computer again...  Evidently the car writes some information about the completion on the stick....

So you go back to the Ford web site and read this back to them over the internet....  I had about an hours time in the whole thing....  But, it would take me more than a hour to line up a service appointment and deliver the car....  And then go get it again..  So I have just gone with the flow about Ford's software updates..

But please understand that newer cars now days have computers that rival any laptop...  And they need these reprogramming sessions right along too....

I didn't even try to re pair my phone... That will be for a later date, when I have forgotten the stress of today's session....

Perhaps it is just me, but I worry that the thing will jump the track because of me, not understanding something and doing it in the wrong sequence...  And if I mess the whole thing up, will the car still run after the Sync screen goes completely dark..?  Will it get me back to the dealers anyway?  Today was Friday afternoon, will I be without my car for the weekend or longer if it goes haywire...?  I can't help but wonder if Ford has ever thought of these customer  worries.....!

I didn't know what I was going to write about when I started this entry, and now it seems I have written a book....   I'll see ya next time....

Retired Rod