u/Tall-Control8992

Stay safe out there folks!

Thankfully it was still morning and the battery comes out as soon as you remove the strut brace and a couple cable connectors to clear the way up.

I got to work on this wet bundle of joy today after a year old alternator failure got blamed on an oil leak. The amount of near tar like sludge inside the covers was ridiculous. I only saw the timing marks on the bottom cover after having to scrub it with a brush due to all the build up on it.

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This also explains the intermittent crank no start with a P0335. Just look at that crank sprocket that doubles as a crank tone wheel.

Definitely one of the easiest German car batteries to do

EDIT: See below for an update

DCA to SFO trip got sold with the second leg being on standby. Aside from a 1hr or so weather delay on the first leg, a bunch of us basically got dumped at the terminal til the next flight at 10am. Apparently neither the airline nor the Chicago PD office on site have any blankets to spare. I've slept on worse surfaces than this before, but this just SUCKS.

If I knew this could even happen. I would've packed my thin summer blanket with me.

It appears Spirit Air now has a spiritual successor.

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UPDATE 5/22/26:

To clarify a few things that got brought up. I travelled in shorts and sandals since my home city was well in the 80s and DC was in the low 90s. Although in retrospect I should have packed something warmer that would have fit in my bag that went under the seat. Plus SOCKS. Live n learn.

A few folks mentioned why I got the standby ticket. My original DCA flight was scheduled at 6am with landing in SFO around noon. I got done earlier than I thought and I checked to see if there are any earlier flights I could get onto for a price, of course. I looked in the SWA app and saw a flight for 7pm with a landing in SFO around midnight. $300 something more, but it is what it is. I'll take it.

Here's the thing. Nowhere in the app did it say the second leg was going to be standby. I only discovered it when I went to the kiosk to print the passes because they wouldn't show up in the app. It printed a pass with a seat number for the first leg, but all dashes on the second pass and a note to show it to a gate agent. Bottom left corner had "stand by" in super small print. Not much I could do except cross my fingers at that point.

But I gotta give credit where credit is due. When I woke up around 3 or 4 in MDW, I saw a note that the rescheduled 9am flight got delayed even more. Along with a note that said I can rebook free of charge, and I saw a flight taking off at 5am with a connect in LAS. Took that and was in my car around 10am in SFO.

Also, it appears the $330 extra charge for the rebooking in DCA got pulled back proactively. So not having to plead my case to some 1-800 number is a damn huge plus from my point of view.

A coworker decided to do the brakes on his 22 Pacifica and missed the step above. Now he's going to get a new caliper to go with those new pads.

On a less positive note, the space between the caliper and the motor had a bunch of brake fluid despite the o ring. The caliper was already leaking at the parking brake jack screw seal at barely four years old. That's the CDJR quality for ya.