That's My Girl!!

I need to brag on my younger daughter for a bit.

Her hubby's car crapped out yesterday.  It would start, but wouldn't run for Sh!+.  She called me to ask for my engine diagnostic reader, and pulled the codes.

The codes indicated a misfire in cylinder 1.  Research said the most likely culprits were a bad spark plug, a bad ignition coil, a bad fuel injector, or a vacuum leak.  She did the troubleshooting, she did the research, and then she consulted me.  We put our heads together and decided the easiest, cheapest course of action was to replace the spark plug.  After swapping out the plug, she reported that the engine was running a bit better, but was still not quite right.

Before continuing, I need to divert a bit... In my day, there was a single ignition coil.  While consulting with her and doing parallel troubleshooting from my house, I found out that modern engines have a separate coil for each cylinder, and the coil is directly connected to the spark plug.  Having learned this, I then researched how to test an ignition coil.  She beat me to the punch... she swapped out two coils and discovered that the trouble code moved to the next cylinder, showing that the ignition coil was defective.  That's right, my girl troubleshot and addressed the problem all on her own.

There's an itty bitty piece of me that wants to give her husband crap for not being mechanically inclined, but I'm not going to do that.  What he lacks in mechanical knowledge and desire to learn he makes up for by being an active, hands-on father, and by being involved in the day-to-day running of the household.  He shares in cooking, cleaning and childcare.  He's a good man who showers my daughter and my grandson with love and devotion.

But that's beside the point.  The gist of today's post is to brag on my little girl for her willingness and ability to identify and fix a moderately complex mechanical issue with virtually no external assistance, which is a rapidly vanishing skill in today's society.  That's my girl!!