Quality is Job One

The Blue car has to be inspected this month. We are not a very imaginative family. We have two Ford Explorers. (They both sport KungFuUtah.com decals.) So I took it to the inspection place. They told me the "third brake light" was burnt out. That is the one up high in the middle that the scare bears made all the automobile companies include in their design as of 1986. "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" No big deal, I thought. I've probably got a light bulb at home in the garage I can just pop in.

So I got home and in the freezing cold I started tearing into the car. It looked like I had to pull off the interior panel, which broke. It was probably extra brittle because of the extreme cold. Then I pulled off some electronic device and then I could see the light fixture was held on by three nuts. Then there were also some rivets that I had to drill out. At this point I was thinking, Holy Moly! What is the deal with this light! The rear side tail lights are extremely easy to replace. It must have been a different part of the design team that did this light. Once I got the whole thing off it was obvious that this was a very different setup.

I called the dealer parts store. Yes, it's a different setup. This is like a flourescent light. I have no idea why. Maybe it's because there is an extremely narrow space where it is installed. The system consists of a ballast which is usually the problem and costs $140 and the light fixture itself is $250!!! I had no way of knowing which was broken. Lenore convinced me I didn't want to bet it was the ballast and then have to spend an additional $250 if it wasn't. So I took it to the dealer and spent $140 for the ballast (that's what was malfunctioning) and $160 for them to figure it out, replace it, and re-attach the light fixture I had removed. Needless to say we didn't dine chez Romano's that evening. I should have come up with a Red Green doityourself repair. But, duct tape doesn't go well with the color of this car.