Daisy Middleworth laid her umbrella on the front counter as she searched in her humongous purse for her checkbook. A small mountain of brushes, hairpins, and romance novels spilled off the counter and onto the floor before she finally found what she was looking for. 
With pen in hand, she looked up and smiled. “Okay, Slim; show me the bad news!”
I swallowed hard and pushed the invoice carefully under her nose. A diminutive woman, the elderly spinster wasn’t much higher than the counter itself. Adjusting her progressive lenses, she squinted at the figures and sucked in her breath with a gasp.
Thirty seconds went by as I waited for her breathing to resume. “Uh, Miss Daisy, is everything alright?”
She exhaled noisily and fanned her face with her checkbook. “Well, I can’t say you didn’t warn me that fixing my air conditioning would be expensive. I suppose I was hoping for a miracle, but I guess they’re in short supply when it comes to car repairs.”
Daisy’s 1999 Jeep Cherokee had needed a new evaporator assembly, which involved a fair bit of dash removal. She hadn’t asked for a firm quote, and because she was a loyal customer who never seemed to worry about repair costs, I hadn’t thought to supply one. She had trusted us with tire and service recommendations in the past, but in retrospect, it would have been easier on her heart if we’d communicated a little more along the way. I made a mental note to never make that mistake again.
Daisy waved off my apology and wrote out the check. “Not to worry, Slim. If I’d wanted a detailed estimate I could have asked for one.” She signed the check with a flourish and handed it over to me. “No, I told you to go ahead. All that matters now is that I have nice cold air for the summer season.”
As she drove out of the parking lot, I thought how nice it would be to have more customers like Daisy Middleworth. “A very understanding lady,” remarked Quigley, stepping out of the broom closet where he’d been hiding.
“I told you she would be.” I stapled the check to the invoice and put them into the cash drawer. “Now stop being a coward and take over this counter like I hired you to do.”
“Those large invoices make me nervous,” whined Quigley. “I’ll take care of her next time. I promise.”
It wasn’t long before Quigley had to make good on his word. Miss Daisy was back, but she wasn’t so understanding this time. “I don’t mind paying for repairs,” she said firmly, waving her umbrella under Quigley’s nose, “but by golly, they’d better last! It’s only been a week and already my air conditioning system has called it quits!”
He came running to find me. “Slim, we got problems! Miss Daisy’s back and her umbrella’s not happy!”
“Calm down,” I said. “Get Daisy some iced tea and then bring the Jeep inside. We’ll check it out right away.” I went looking for Beanie, since we’d let our apprentice do most of the work on Daisy’s evaporator replacement.
“Bean, bring your test light. We’ve got some investigating to do.” It didn’t take too long to find the problem: the resistor for the fan motor was melted down. I sent Beanie off to pick up a new resistor from Herkle’s Auto Parts.
I showed Basil the damaged resistor. “What do you think burnt this out?” I asked. “Too much current draw?”
Basil cleaned his spectacles before taking a closer look. “Excessive current draw will certainly create havoc with these resistors,” he agreed. “If I recall correctly, this wouldn’t be the first Chrysler we’ve seen with a heavy-handed blower motor. I believe anything over 10 amps could be considered high. Still…” He pointed to one of the terminals. “See how burnt this is? I would say it was caused by a loose connection.”
I agreed, and since we’d just had the system apart – including all the wiring connections – I replaced the resistor for Daisy at no charge. It definitely cheered her up. “Well, thank you, Slim. I didn’t know what to expect, and as you know, my bank account is a little low right now!”
The weather was overcast a few days later, so I didn’t notice the small, dark cloud as it pulled up into my parking lot. But when the storm broke inside the front office, I knew we’d have to get serious about fixing Daisy’s reoccurring problems. Either that, or give Quigley fencing lessons so he could defend himself against her umbrella. Once again, Daisy’s Jeep was failing to put out cool air. In fact, it wasn’t blowing any kind of air at all.
“Is it another resistor?” Beanie asked hopefully. “I hear there’s been a bad run of them…”
“Nice try,” I growled, climbing out from under the dash. “The resistor is fine. The problem this time is there’s no power going through the motor from the fan switch.” I looked at him. “You had this thing all apart, did you happen to notice any other loose connections?”
He looked at his shoes. “Well, there might have been one or two…”
And with that, I sent him back into the dash to recheck and tighten all the wiring connections he could find in the harness – anything related to the heating system. It wasn’t long before he sheepishly informed me that he’d found the trouble. The C206 connector – located just behind the glove box on the outside of the HVAC housing – was loose, creating a bad connection.
“I remember it being an easy fit when I did the job,” he admitted. “Guess I should have taken a second look at it then.”
Beanie had learned an important lesson: It’s better to be more thorough the first time around than to go back and do it all again later. And to drive the lesson home, I made him go out to the front office to personally explain the problem to Miss Daisy.
“Here,” I said, handing him a garbage can lid. “Take this just in case. She might be small, but she’s armed!”
Rick Cogbill, a freelance writer and former shop owner in Summerland, B.C., has written The Car Side for a variety of trade magazines for the past 14 years. “A Fine Day for a Drive,” his first book based on the characters from this column, is now available for order at thecarside.com. A collection of his past The Car Side columns is also available at that website.
