Last night I did something I've never done before: I carried a bathtub. Well, helped carry it. One of my sons is redoing one of their bathrooms, and part of it includes replacing the bathtub (link goes to the specific one that was ordered). Well, I have a truck, and they do not, so I went to Home Depot to assist with pickup and transport (I didn't load into the truck - my son and a HD worker did that). After driving the bathtub to his house (I don't always do "truck things" - but it's nice to have when I do! that whole bathtub fit in the truck bed, an 08 Dodge Ram 1500 Laramie Quad Cab w/ ~6'4" bed, with the tailgate shut), I helped him unload it into his garage. So, now I've carried a bathtub, and I can no longer say I haven't. But I noticed something interesting after setting it down in their garage:
In case you can't see what I'm talking about, on the box, it says, Keep Dry:
It's a bathtub. And apparently you're supposed to not get it wet. Hmm... not sure how well that's going to work. Is it for display only? Is it for Ben Franklin's "air baths"? Either way, it seems odd to say "keep the bathtub dry." (I know, I know, it's only talking about the bathtub packaging, not the installed bathtub, but it's still amusing.) Oh, and they got a free double-length pallet from the bathtub order, too!
Back to that truck: it has under 77k miles on it. That's just a little over 4,200 miles/year, WAY under the national average of around 12k-15k/year. Although, it's an interesting search topic itself: it says "average miles driven per year" but doesn't necessarily coordinate that to "average miles put on a car per year" - which is it? Is 12-15k the average put on a vehicle per year? Because, say if I have two vehicles in my household, and I personally drive 15k miles/year, but it's split between the two vehicles, and my wife also drives that average amount/year, then we're likely at the "average per vehicle" - but if I have three vehicles, wouldn't the average driven be lower per vehicle while the average "driven" is the same?
Anyway, despite that, it still has age on it (18 years). And it has a few quirks.
First, the HVAC controls - the blend and mode doors don't seem to work properly, so that 1) I typically have zero control over changing where the air comes out - it's currently set on "dash vents" but I cannot change it to floor or defrost vents; and 2) I sometimes lose control over switching the temp blend door, so I can't change whether the air is hot or cold or somewhere in-between. Most of the time, this isn't going to be a problem in South Alabama, since we typically would have AC full blast, but over the last couple of weeks, with the occasional super-cold snaps, it's been a little problematic.
Second, and this is a bit more problematic, the dash/interior/cargo/map/HVAC lights don't work. Now the signal is there (when turning the vehicle lights on, the radio lights dim as expected), but no dash lights. Which makes driving at night interesting. I *think* I've narrowed it down to either wiring from the TIPM or the physical connections to the TIPM itself (I don't think it's a TIPM issue itself, just a connection/wiring issue - at least, I hope that's the case). I still need to do a little more troubleshooting — disconnecting the C1 and C2 connectors (after disconnecting the battery, of course) to check for corrosion or bent/broken pins, and checking the wiring bundles from those connectors for breaks or opens — but that's enough for today.
In the interim, I added a little GPS heads-up display unit - it's honestly not that great (sometimes, usually at night when it's the worst impact, it will continually reset itself, leading to super-bright green flashes of "188" while it starts up, and then I won't know my speed for a while), but mostly it helps. And I can use the "distance to empty" readout on the overhead console if I need a fuel gauge. And I figure anything else hopefully I'll get "dummy lights" on the dash (those aren't part of the "dash lighting" circuit) if anything really goes wrong.
But, hey, it's never failed to start, and it gets me where I need to go (at an average of 14mpg on mid-grade fuel).
Oh, another thing I did today that I've never done before (although technically I've tried & failed a week or two ago): getting a urine sample from my 50-pound Weimaraner/Golden Doodle puppy 😬. Not that it's something I want to do on a regular basis — sliding a little plastic tray under her while she pees and then trying to get back inside without her knocking it out of my hands — but at least we can get her urinalysis done now. 😀
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