Day +183

I am fine today.

My wife and I noticed our Daithasu Charade started to produce “Gik, Gik” noise after we drove it for some distance. We could not figure out where did the noises came from. I worried the noise is coming from the transplanted engine due to overheat again. A few days before the old engine ‘melt down’ due to overheat last time, I heard such noises as well. This made me very nervous. If the engine gave me problem again, my wife and Daniel have to go to school using mountain bikes. Cheaper :-)

In order to avoid ‘The Melt Down 2’, I brought the car to the workshop this afternoon. I drove the car with one of the mechanics first for a short distance to let him hear the noise, and then leave the car at the workshop for them to check.

At about 6:00pm, I called the workshop owner. He told me he could not hear the noise, even after test drive the car on KESAS Highway for almost one hour together with the mechanic who heard the noise earlier. They also took turn to drive and ‘drive fast, drive slow’, but the engine behaves very well no matter what they did. This puzzled me. Could it be the workshop owner’s weight made the car ‘dare not’ produced the noise? He is a big heavy weight guy who is about double my size. If this is not the case, then the car was trying to hide the problem, just like when I wanted to bring Adriel to see doctor yesterday, she told me, “My ear is not painful. My ear is not smelly. Not need to see doctor.” But after she saw the doctor, she thought that I have to see doctor as well and keep on saying, “You have not see doctor, you must see doctor.”

In the end, I test drive with the heavy weight guy for a short distance and I am relieved to hear the noise again. He said, “Funny, funny! I definitely don't hear this just now.” Upon hearing the noise, he immediately pointed out that the noise came from the wire which connects the wheel to the speed meter. After applying some grease to it, the noise was gone :-) No charge :-)

Getting a right guy to service the car is important. An inexperienced mechanic might ‘open’ the car and do a lot of unnecessary works to fix the problem and then charge you a big sum of money for his on-the-job training.

See you next post :-)