Truck report

Got the call from my mechanic, Ryan. It wasn't the alternator after all, the battery had a faulty cell. You could charge the battery but when you put any sort of load on it it would rapidly lose its charge. That explains why I had problems getting it started this morning. I had charged it yesterday, but when I turned the key it crashed. Luckily, it didn't lose all of its charge and I was finally able to restart it. Then it stalled and I had to restart it again--twice--before I got out of the driveway. I was afraid to stop on the way to the mechanic's for fear it would stall again. I was lucky enough not to have to come to a full stop at any point of the 8 mile trip down to the shop. Of course, once I was there, I shut the engine off and tried to restart and it did so on the first attempt. I noticed on the ride down that the voltage meter showed the battery was charging, so I had an inkling the alternator might not be the problem before Ryan even looked at it.

So one day, one battery and $95 later, I'm eady to head north...manana.