Picture If You Will ...

Boy, where have you been?

Well, I'm finally going to blog about something this new year. Tomorrow we are going to celebrate my brother Mike's birthday by going to dinner. We were planning to go to Chinatown and have dim sum, but the weather has put the kibosh on that plan. I guess now we are going to a new restaurant at a mall near my parent's house.

I have a 2005 Toyota Highlander that I have been pretty happy with... until now. Last week, the heater control decided to go on the fritz. This isn't exactly a good thing around this time of year. Sometimes I get heat, sometimes I don't get any heat. More serious is the fact that the defroster is also affected. So, I go into a Pep Boys because my warranty is expired (I already have over 47,000 miles on the vehicle). After a diagnostic check, they determine that the switches are on the fritz. They call in for the parts and then they drop the bomb.... $917 for the parts alone!!!! It seems that they have to get the ENTIRE heater control module from Toyota since there is no third party part. ARRGH!!! I bought a Toyota because they were supposed to be reliable.

After a few days of hoping the heater would magically come back to life on a consistent basis, I come to the realization that I have to bite the bullet and order the part. Yesterday I ordered the part and plunked down the money for it. The guy said that it would be in today and that they would give me a call. Well, by 3pm I still haven't heard from them. So I give them a call and ask if it had come in yet. He tells me that Toyota sent them the WRONG module, and that it should come in tomorrow. At least the heater decided to work on the ride back home.

Anyway, I hope that everyone had a great holiday and that their year got off to a better start than mine.

posted by Eugene @ 9:34 PM