Parts for car recovery and other

A couple of words about this vehicle. It’s served well for about 130,000 miles without too many major complaints. Until this year, any problems have been cosmetic or normal wear and tear. Recently, though, it’s required a new alternator, battery, starter, muffler, and a host of other minor annoyances. The worst has been a series of mysterious ailments in the electrical system. Over the past few months, one thing after another has just stopped working—the radio, dome light, alarm sounds, rear defroster, and the power seatbelts. I’d resigned myself to this trend continuing, especially after two different mechanics had thrown their hands up and declared that just finding the problem would take at least 10 hours of labor. For a vehicle I plan to replace relatively soon, that’s more than I’m willing to shell out. Still, I do have the occasional moment of frustration. I hit this point yesterday when the air conditioner abruptly stopped working in the 93 degree Chicago weather. After swearing copiously, I took an inventory of what I knew about the problem, which wasn’t much. I briefly considered standing knowledgeably over the open hood, but dismissed the idea. Setting aside the fact that it wouldn’t do any good, it was still marginally cooler in the car than it was out of it. I figured I had three choices—give up and sweat, call someone who knows something about cars, or see if there was anything I could do that wouldn’t do me bodily harm even if it didn’t help. Knowing as little as I do about my vehicle (I’ve changed the oil myself exactly once, and even that was under close supervision), the only thought I had was that it might, maybe, just be a blown fuse. Happily, the toolbox in my trunk has a few spares. So I bravely exposed myself to the sun, retrieved the fuses from the trunk, and at the same time realized that it was now warmer in the car than in the world at large. I started dinking around with the fuse box, marveling for a moment at the ingenious...

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