Tag: KIA

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Plugging a Tire

One of the things I wished I had learned when I was younger was more hands on mechanical things. But I was never one to just wish for it, I went out and earned it. I asked questions, watched YouTube videos and just went out and tried.

When we were back in Jersey a neighbor taught me how to plug a tire. This saved me on soooo many occasions, everyone should learn how to.

I have plugged many tires since then and I wanted to teach Seth this valuable lesson.

The tire was plugged, air was added and all was set. I drove it around a couple of time just to make sure the air was not leaking out. All seemed right with the world……………..

Update:

As of this very moment 7/31/2019 I am sitting on the side of the road waiting for road side assistance. The wife came out to the car this morning to see the tire very low on air. The only thing I can figure was I did not push the plug in far enough….’That’s what she said’

She took my car and I was going to try and play with the tire again but I forgot to take the jack out of my car. You see, new cars do not come with jacks or spare tires. This is probably one of the worst ideas ever, I would like to take this moment to say that whoever had the idea to remove the spare needs to have a foot shoved up his/her ass. And I mean that literally.

The tire was not completely flat, just low so I used a can of Fix-a-Flat and added air. And off I went, everything was roses until about 10 minutes on the highway when I looked up and saw the PSI dropping! Fuckitty fuck fuck….

I pulled off the highway just in time to for the tire to go completely flat. So, here I sit waiting for KIA road side assistance to come get me. And to think all of this could have been avoided by having a spare tire!

Ps….I just went back to look to see if I just didn’t see a spare….but no, I was correct no spare.

Dear KIA Design/Engineer/Parts Team,

FUCK YOU from the bottom of my heart. I hope every one of you breaks down in some remote area with no cell phone service and you have to walk 15 miles to find a pay phone to call for service, just to realize you left all the information you need back in the car and that you now have to walk all the way back to the car just to come back to the pay phone to call for that amazing road side assistance.

Do not get me wrong, KIA makes really good cars. We are a KIA family but this design flaw really needs to be addressed,

Thank you

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Road Journal Story Time: Story # 4

This story starts with a ping to go pick up ‘Steve’, he has his profile picture set and his address is only a few minutes away from my current location. (FYI people; if you use Uber or Lyft please set your profile picture, it really helps us out.)

I see from his profile he is an older gentleman with this sly little smile on him, cool lets roll! I arrive at his address, very up scale gated community. He come out and he is dressed to kill; black three piece suite, purple stripped tie and a black shirt. I first thought he might be heading to a funeral but I was wrong, just a benefit dinner for blah blah and blah.

Right off the bat if found out he is a talker. I get a read on people as they get in my car: Talkers, Mutes, Workaholics, Drunks, or the ‘Dear God I Hope This Ride is Over Soon’. I have one other one: ‘Invisible Driver’. This one needed a little more explanation. These are the riders that act like I am not even there and talk to each other about some of the most interesting things. Like the time I got these three Bros that were making plans to buy steroids to get jacked for their Halloween party in Vegas and step by step plans on how there were going to get the cocaine……Hey, dudes….you might not want to put that type of info on blast. Just saying….

So, Steve goes on to tell me that he is 86 and just had his drivers licenses taken form him. He said he has a nice BMW that he needs to sell, he said it is not that big of deal. He does not really go out much and its never very far when he does, but he said and I quote:

‘The said that my fainting spells behind the wheel was the main factor to why I should not be driving. But that is what makes life so interesting and exciting.’

He said this with a straight face, then the smile came out and he laughed it off. This was going to be one of those fun rides! He went on to tell me that he was a teacher back in the 60’s but was not making the money he needed to raise his family. It seems teachers salaries have always been on the fuzzy end of the lollipop!

He opened up a swim school, which he said was his money maker. The swimming business did very well for him and he even handed the business over to his son, who to this day is still running it. He then leans over and says this:

‘Want to hear something funny? I don’t know how to swim! I can teach someone how but throw my ass in a lake and I am done for! Swimming in a pool that you can stop and stand up in is one thing, but being in an environment where you cannot do that…..count me out.’

I just about spit laughing when he told me this, but then I thought about the person who taught me how to swim. It was when I worked at Bally’s Gym as the juice bar guy. The swim instructor would come and I would give her the hook up on the protein, and she hooked me up with some lessons. And come to think of it, I never once saw her in the pool! She did all the water aerobic classes, adult swim classes and so on, but not once did she get wet! I bet she was the same way! The pool was only about four feet deep so if she had to jump in to save someone, swimming would not really been necessary haha!

As our trip continued our conversation went on about all the usual things, and came to an end when I dropped him off at this high-end members only type of golf course. My car was the only one there that was not in the $100,000 range…..well excuse my KIA!

I dropped off Steve and went on my way, these are the type of rides I hope for. I hope the best for Steve and pray that he is never surprised by a deep body of water anytime soon.

I will end this post a little different, I love sharing pictures so I will end this post with one from about 18 years ago. I always end my post with the words: Journal often, journal more and take pictures of everything. I say this because time moves way too fast and I love the fact I have my journals and pictures to look back on. 18 years ago I married my best friend and by no means does it feel like 18 years!

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Round Two

It finally came!

After searching and searching I finally went with the actual Kia part, instead of the ‘Kia Like’ parts I found on Ebay and Amazon. They were cheaper but this is not the time or place to go cheap. I did go cheap on the shipping, the part was about $178 and the shipping…..over night would have been $300! Or….wait a week and only pay $18, yeah I did not need the part that badly! So a week it was to be….

I get the notice from USPS that I had to go to the post office because ‘There was not a safe place to deliver’, I cannot remember the last time I was at the post office! There I was at 0900 hrs, first in line getting my package and the lady comes from the back with this BOX….and all I kept thinking was ‘Did I order the right part?!?!’ The part is literally about the size of a soft ball and here is this box that could probably fit about 20 of them!

To my surprise I had actually order the correct thing!

Replacing it was super simple; took off the panel cover, removed the two nuts, wiggled the two claps out of their sockets, unplugged the burnt out unit, plug in the new one and then just put it back in place. (Thank you YouTube for showing me how to do this!)

Light was in and it tested out perfectly. I would like to thank KIA Parts for making this super simple and easy. I am curious how much I would have had to pay in labor for this if I had taken it to KIA? From a quick Google search I learned that the average labor cost from a dealer is $80-$125 an hour! In the end all I paid was $195 plus my time, god only know how much they would have charged for the part and the labor would have been listed as an hour. I will call this a Dad Victory, I do not want call the thunder of the Dad Gods so I will sacrifice a beer on the Man Altar this weekend.

This week has started off in the right direction, the weekend is almost here. Not sure what we are doing but I do want to get outside, the weather is getting better and the wife has been talking about hiking…..so lets see what happens!

Till next post; journal often, journal more and take pictures of everything.