Car Tale continues

For those of you wondering what happened to my car situation, here is the story as far as it goes. I had taken it in saying it was not starting and because of that was not able to get emission tested. Apparently all they heard was I flunked the emissions testing. They ran diagnostics and pulled out three codes, all have to do with emissions. I was kind of confused. Last year I passed OK and I had no reason to think that was a problem as testing had not proceeded that far.

     I was told I needed to fix one of them definitely which might not solve the problem and then they would just go down the list until it was fixed. I kept asking-well, what about my car not starting. THAT was the issue that brought me in. Finally I was told my battery was fine and I probably had an electrical drain somewhere but it was a big deal to try and find.

     So I didn't get anything done. I want to actually flunk the emissions test before I do anything about that. I thought it was very suspicious that I was told I had all these emissions problems after I had just said I had come from there. They weren't interested in my starting problem.

    I have ordered a thing to put on the battery that turns it off. I will have to go up under the hood to start it but since I rarely do start it up, I don't think that is a problem. My car is running fine now. For the rest of the week I would start it up as I was leaving in the morning. I then drove it to Athens, GA and back and it has been starting every time.

     I will try to run through the emissions again. If I fail it, then I will look at options to fix it. I felt like the mechanics were asking me to jump down a black hole with them, probably never declaring it fixed until I had spend big bucks. So in the end, I spent about $85 in diagnostics to do nothing and for now, everything is fine.