I haven't been driving much in the last few weeks. A cocktail of energy prices, busyness at work and plain old sloth conspires to keep me out of the car (which is good). I did have the occasion to drive near my usual source for E85 (about 40 miles away) so here is the price info:

E85: $2.22
E10: $2.69

Lower, but not enough to make economic sense. I buy it anyway, long time readers will know why, newbies can always use the search function to catch up on my reasons.

CEL Status: OFF, thankfully
Hard Starting Status: Much better, even without considering the 20-30 degree temperature drop since it was worked on. Still gotta pump the gas while starting. I understand this is normal many cars but not this one when using E10. My old Thunderbird was this way all the time, so it is only a small thing.

I am cautiously optimistic about the repairs. I have not been running it too much, but I think that the CEL was lit within this timeframe the last time.

Please indulge me and let me hammer this lesson to everyone out there: all dealerships are not the same and the parent company, at least Ford, doesn’t really care too much if you run into a dealer that sucks while under warranty. I will be sending a sternly written letter (email doesn’t work so well for dinosaur companies and congress) detailing my unhappiness with the first dealer in this story. If the saga is indeed over, I will also make sure to praise the dealer that finally fixed the problem. I don’t really believe that anything will come of it, but I want to give the company the opportunity to keep me as a customer on the next cycle.

I fully expect Gary and ALAM Bob to reappear. I am working on a post detailing alternative energy projects/research. This future post will be sure to start a nice discussion.

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