Anna and Amy conspired to leave the keys in the Journey for two full days after we returned from KC. Dad needs practice running up and down the two steps between the house and the garage. How can we make this happen? Dead battery. Dead like a vampire exposed to the sun, burned up, stakes fired from a Gatling gun, finished up with a nuclear warhead chaser.
I learned about the science of battery charging in my path to concluding the battery was dead. Who said frustration couldn’t also be educational? Was I happy about my newfound knowledge? No. No, I was not. Thus began another epic adventure in walking to AutoZone, missing tools, and impalings from metal shavings. (Have you tried the new shop-based exfoliant? Steel, razor-sharp microbeads included!)
I walked the mile-and-a-quarter to AutoZone, bought a battery, returned home, went to remove the driver’s side front wheel (because Dodge is a bunch of dark comic sadists and requires you to remove this wheel in order to replace the battery. We’re special. We want to be different. Everyone should know how to take off a tire. Yeah, fuck you, Dodge.), and discovered that I was missing the wheel-lock key.
Another way Dodge establishes its simultaneous dumbassery and specialness is by installing a wheel-lock key on each wheel of the series 2009 Journey. This is a star-patterned socket that fits onto the lug. Onto the back of this, you fit the tire iron and crank away.
Of course, if you gave the wheel-lock key to the tire-change shop two months prior and can’t remember if you got it back from them (you didn’t), call and ask if they can find it (they can’t), search your home from top to bottom and can’t find it (’cause it’s in a black hole to another universe), call around to dealerships and they won’t help you (you ain’t one of their kind), you’re screwed.
The dealers are more than willing to assist–if you bring your car in. Normally, that’s not a problem. Just crank her up and roll over in ten-years-old-not-quite-POSC-but-paid-off style. Slight problem with that when you can’t install the battery, stupid fucks. Will they loan out the tools for their full value? My superpower flying research is still in its infancy, but I can hoof it over there. No dice. I can only guess that they’re doing some weird sex thing with the tools when they aren’t willing to part with them for 10 minutes.
(Side note: if they are doing some weird sex thing, why are dealership-based car repairs so high? Porn is a money-maker, so auto-repair should be a loss leader. The economics are flawless. Think of all the repurposable toys they have lying around.)
I set to asking The Google what to do. Turns out, when you can’t find the wheel-lock nut, mechanics take a slightly smaller socket, pound it onto the offending lug until the socket is wedged in place, then crank the wedged lug nut with a torque wrench or breaker bar. Great idea. Problem: the wheel-lock nut was convex around the sides, bulged out like your waistline after Thanksgiving dinner, not flat.
I had several sockets that would have been wedgeable onto a regular lug, but on the lock nut with its bulging midsection? Not so much. This is where Dodge said, “Fuck you back, buddy.”
I called around to towing services. It was looking to cost about $50-$75 to tow the Journey to a shop and have them torque off the lock nut. I was exhausted, frustrated, angry, and wanting to salvage some semblance of my weekend, so I did the logical thing: got out my old chisels and chipped away at the metal forming the convexity around the lock nut.
I chiseled the pot metal until I got down to the steel, down to a regular-sized nut. Then I pounded on a slightly-smaller nut, torqued it off, changed the battery, and away we went–24 hours later.
That’s right, it took me a full day to chisel the metal down far enough. Apparently, my time is worth less than $2/hr.
But my pride is priceless.
All man. All hard.
Man hard.