My right eye has been twitching for the past few days. Call me superstitious but I truly believe that something horrid was gonna happen. How serious is the matter depends on how long or how hard the eye twitches. For this round I was bracing for the worst. The last time when I had eye twitching was a few years back when my dad was seriously ill. Each time my eye twitches, I get emergency calls from the hospital. That prompted me to believe that bad luck was going to befall.
Dropped my son off at his school at about 6.55am and then noticed the air-cond was not cold. How come? It was raining heavily. I should be freezing inside the car. One look at my meter temperature and I saw the needle going towards "H"...Up and up it went until it reached the red spot. I was alarmed.....praying hard that my front bonnet would not explode. I imagined my bonnet burst opened by the amounting pressure with smokes blowing out.
Stopped by the side and sat in the car for easily an hour. Heck....who could I call at such early hours. I can't open the water tank anyway. It's too hot to open it. Wouldn't want hot boiling water gushing onto my face and leave me scarred for life.
So I waited. Good thing mom was with me. She started telling me true stories about life after death. Geez......what a way to pass time. An hour later, we opened the bonnet. It was still drizzling. Water tank was full with water. So it cannot be the car running out of water. Phew....I really said to myself if it is because the car ran out of water then I only have myself to blame for. I would be so ashamed...good thing it wasn't that.
Around 9am++ the mechanic came. He checked and confirmed there is nothing wrong with the car except for the air-cond. And so I had to drive my car to the air-cond workshop. from the school to the workshop is about 1.5km. By the time I got there, temperature was at its max again. The guy had to wait for a while vefore opening the water tank cap. He said water is boiling. Yeah...when he opened it I could hear the ssshhhhhh sound followed by gluglug gluglug sound and then smoke coming out of it.
After the "CT scan", the car was dignosed with "lung failure". The fan has kaputed. And because the fan was not working, while driving, it actually add on the stress to the relay causing the relay to burn. He showed me the relay. It was black all over. He said had I continue to drive further, it would damage my car engine, thus I will have more headache.
So now he had to dismantle the fan and replace it with a new one. The original set costs RM500- RM600 for a Hyundai Atos. The not-so-original one costs RM290. A few things which I learnt today.
1. Never ever buy a Korean car. The guy told me Korean cars are sold cheap but spare parts cost a bomb. In fact for some parts the cost is equivalent to a Mercedes.
2. There is only ONE fan in Atos. Meaning, the fan will need to "look after" the air-cond and the engine. In Japanese cars, there are TWO separate fans, each looking after their own portfolio.
3. The cost of Atos fan is equivalent to 2.5 fans of a Toyota!!! Can you beat that?
4. Saw a Camry parked inside the workshop. We aked if it was his. He said yes. We asked further if its fuel savings. He said yes, definitely better than my car.
5. Never ever buy a Korean car. Seriously fuel consumption is so high and there is no 2nd hand value.
6. Car air-cond needs to be serviced every 18 months.
7. The air-cond filter needs to be changed every 30,000km. Filter is important as it looks after the compressor. The compressor is like the air-cond's heart. If it suffers a heart attack, it will die. And the replacement is not cheap.
So best is to send your car for a regular medical check before it is too late. When it requires surgery, chemotherapy and radiology....your pocket will suffer.
My cooling coil was removed to check if it is still in a good condition.
From the inside of the car at the passenger seat, below the dashboard. You probably can't figure this out. It looked a lot like the skull's been removed.
This is the front bonnet. Water tank's cap been removed.
Damn! I bought Atos because it was cheap. Didn't realise the spare parts price could match up to a Mercedes and Toyota. From poor became poorer now. Sighhh.
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1 comment:
My partner had the same problem with his old wira year ago although engine and air-cond fans are separate. Temperature of radiator was high.
The engine cooling fan stopped working. It was fine before sending for service. I suspected it as faults of the EON service center.
So, I insisted he drove his car to nearby petrol station. Looked up some empty plastic bottles. Filled them with water and poured/showered the cooling coil/radiator. Then kept some water and insisted we can drive some distance and if temperature indicator showed a rise. We can repeat the shower.
He was very afraid and reluctant to believe me. I insisted because of the science behind. So, the radiator and engine cooled a little. We drove on until almost approaching home and service center. He stopped because he was worried. I said, "Shower some more." We did and as we were just outside the taman. The workshop guys passed by and took over. They either disturbed the fuse of the fan or never check that it coincidentally burnt. Replaced the fuse and fan was working again. Very very cheap solution.
If I was familiar or had his car manual, could have even change the fuse from the replacement box itself. So easy. Know you car.
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