Recently, my honey and I drove to Florida in my trusty RAV4 named “Rainy”. It was a beautiful month and the temperatures were in the 80’s on several days. Often we drove with the windows open but we also cranked the air conditioner when we were too hot. My honey noticed water seeping onto the passenger car mat by her left foot. At first we thought our water bottle was leaking but then realized it was more than that. It seemed to happen when I applied the brakes and it was getting worse. My winter gloves were on the floor and I could almost wring them out.
My solution to this annoying problem was to turn off the AC and simply open the windows. My honey had other ideas and was dropping hints about getting the car to the mechanic to get it fixed. All I could think of was spending money while not earning any on vacation. This doesn’t sit well with me! I told her I would google the problem and see if it was the AC as I suspected. Then I promptly forgot about it! I woke up the next morning to a text from my honey with a YouTube video on the problem!
I am not very mechanically inclined and this becomes a convenient excuse to not attempt to solve minor problems or repairs such as this. But using this excuse lets me stay on the couch and it lets me not even try to figure out a solution to my problem. I was convinced I would screw it up but I bravely watched the video and then another and another. Now I had a decent idea of what I needed to do to fix the problem and it didn’t look terribly hard.
I bravely grabbed a towel and laid on the ground by the car. I scooched under it and felt around for a drainage tube as instructed. I felt nothing. I tried several more times and got a bit frustrated. I watched another video that showed me how to access the drainage tube from inside the car, behind the glove box. I found it and followed it to its exit under the vehicle. I was so excited, I did a little happy dance and ran inside to tell my honey. The next step was to use an air compressor to blow some air into the end of the tube to force it to drain. I quickly discovered the bike pump didn’t really blow much air (that explains why I couldn’t get that darn tire filled)!
My other option was to drain it from inside the car. I did this but had forgotten to put a catch pan or even a towel on the floor and water literally ran freely into the car. I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or cry so I did neither! I simply started sopping it up with a towel. It took several days for all of the parts of car to dry out underneath my glove compartment. Once it was dry, I bravely put it all together and went for a drive. Air conditioner worked great and no more leaking!
Doing it myself saved some cash! Doing it myself helped me learn something new. Doing it myself gave me a bit of confidence. Doing it myself got me off of the couch and into the world! I need to learn to stop using the “I’m not mechanically inclined as an excuse when it comes to fixing minor issues”! Now I have some tools that need to be sharpened and a brand new sharpener. I have some YouTube watching to do!
Have you used YouTube to learn how to fix anything lately? How did it go?
Choose Wealth!
Lake Girl
