Uh-oh.” Quigley looked out the window with a frown on his face. “Here comes trouble.”
Four necks swiveled in unison to see what our salesman and service writer was referring to. The answer came sauntering across the parking lot, heading toward our front door.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” said Righteous Bailey a minute later, as he eased his pot-bellied form into a vacant coffee room chair. “I trust I’m not interrupting anything worthwhile.”
Tooner rolled his eyes, laying down his playing cards. “Not that it makes no difference to you, but yes – you are. What’s it this time, Righteous?”
Righteous feigned a look of fake indignation. “Do I detect a hint of hostility in your voice, Mr. Tooner? Really, that’s no way to treat a fellow colleague. We’re all fighting the same battle, you know.”
Tooner’s ears began to smolder as he rolled up his sleeves. “If it’s a battle yer wantin’, then let’s step outside!”
“Relax, boys,” I said quickly. A scuffle in the parking lot would not look good to the clientele. “What can we do for you today, Righteous?”
Normally we keep pretty good relationships going with the other shops in town. But Righteous Bailey was the exception, and to be honest, it was fully self-inflicted. For starters, there was the sign over his little one-man shop down the street. It read “Righteous Repairs – Only We Can Fix it Right(eous).” By implication, the rest of the shops in town were nothing less than crooks and charlatans.
And to make matters worse, Righteous was also a purist. Now, taking pride in your work was one thing, but Righteous took it to the extreme. Every oil change meant sending off oil samples for lab analysis – at his customer’s expense – and a new set of brake pads came with an intimidating cross-examination about your driving habits.
Even with something as simple as a flat tire, Righteous would want to know the rate of air loss, the contamination factor of the rusty nail, and, above all, the penetration angle relative to the estimated rate of entry speed of the foreign object.
His passion for knowing how things worked was not only an obsession, it was also a point of self-righteous pride. In his view, the rest of us were “the unenlightened ones.”
But while his insistence on detail drove us nuts, for some reason his flock of faithful customers loved him. Though we hated to admit it, the fact he was still in business bewildered us.
Righteous looked around for a spare coffee mug, but there wasn’t any – Quigley had quietly hidden them away. He sighed. “Gentlemen, I’m having this reoccurring problem with the daytime running lights on a 2001 Chevrolet Prizm, and…”
“A Prizm?” interrupted Beanie. “Never seen one of those in this town. Do they even make those anymore?”
Our unwelcome guest gasped, clearly at a loss to explain Beanie’s ignorance. “Young man, the Prizm is a compact sedan manufactured by a small auto manufacturing plant in Fremont, Calif., called New United Motor Manufacturing. A joint venture between both Chevy and Toyota, the Prizm is…”
“It’s basically an American-built Toyota Corolla with the Chevy nameplate on it,” interjected Basil. “Righteous, could you move things along? You’re interrupting our card game and I happen to be winning.”
“Fine!” Righteous folded his arms over his ample belly and continued. “As I was saying, there’s this reoccurring problem with the daytime running lights. The headlamps were staying on, so I knew the daytime running light module behind the glove box was defective. But when I replaced the module, an interesting phenomenon occurred.”
“Lemme guess,” chuckled Tooner. “Ya let the smoke out?”
Righteous glared at him. “In a manner of speaking, yes. Whereas initially the headlights would not turn off, I now have the problem of the running lights staying on. Obviously the DRL modules are burning out; the question is why.”
“Why indeed.” Basil shook his head. “Quigley, why don’t you show Mr. Bailey here some wiring diagrams for that vehicle. I suspect there is a faulty ground somewhere that needs to be specified and rectified.”
“Splendid!” Righteous rubbed his hands together with obvious pleasure. Being a small operation, he didn’t invest much in expensive equipment or monthly subscription fees. He preferred to bum the use of those costly things from his “unenlightened” colleagues.
Quigley led Righteous off to our database computer in the parts room while the rest of us tried to forget he’d ever been there. By the afternoon coffee break things had returned to normal. “I’ll raise ya three grapes and a peanut butter sandwich,” said Tooner, holding his cards tight to his chest.
Suddenly the front door burst open – Righteous was back in the building.
Tooner threw down his empty hand and sagged in his chair. “Now what!?”
Righteous Bailey ignored the angry glares coming from all corners of the room. “Well, I’ve checked and cleaned every ground connection I can find in the diagrams – behind the driver’s side kick panel, and on the left front fender – but when I plugged in another new module and turned on the headlights…” He spread his hands. “Well, that was the end of the module.” He shook his head sadly in disappointment. “Obviously, your previous advice lacked credibility. However, if you’d like to try again…”
Tooner stood up and pointed a finger in Bailey’s surprised face. “Listen up, buddy, ‘cause I’m only gonna say it once. Forget about the factory grounds. Run some new grounds directly from the DRL module to the dashboard metal. That way you ain’t takin’ no chances.”
Righteous was aghast at the thought. “What? And not locate the actual source of the original problem?” He put one hand over his heart and struck a patriotic pose. “Never! I shall seek this out; I shall track it down; I shall never give up…”
“You’d better give it up,” interrupted Tooner with a sneer. “How many modules d’ya plan on payin’ for?”
Righteous paused, “Hmm, he does have a point…”
With his tail between his rather wide legs, he went back to his Prizm and ran dedicated ground wires between the chassis and the DRL module. And to no one’s surprise (except his own), the daytime running lights worked perfectly from then on.
They say that people don’t change, but Righteous Bailey had. He had cut corners, so to speak, and had still obtained a satisfactory repair.
I guess you could say he’d finally seen the light.
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 15 years. “A Fine Day for a Drive,” his first book based on the characters from this column, is now available for order at www.thecarside.com.
