problems after distributor replacement

[ca95965]

You guys were so helpful before that I am here again to get your impressions.

 

My distributor was replaced a few days ago. Since then I have noticed some things that are different and one of them is serious enough that I am afraid to drive it like this.

 

1) the "check engine" light comes on now and I do not notice that it happens with any predictability. It flashes on and off a lot on the dirt road here that is the first mile of my journey to anywhere. The way this happens I thought it must be some loose wire. It does the same on the paved road beyond that, just not as often. I told the mechanic about that one right away and he said that 9 times out of 10 that's smog stuff, and he said it like it isn't important. Ok, if that was the only thing, or maybe the only thing aside from:

 

2) when I first pressed the button on the dash to put my side mirrors back to my height there was a sound so distinctly like a duck quacking that I stopped the car and turned down the radio so I could hear it more clearly. I mean, I could have sworn it was a duck but I didn't know where one could be, and after all it had come from that button being pushed.

 

3) I noticed after the repair that it had a new putt putt sound, like a VW, coming from the engine area. I figured that since Subs. are so connected to VW's that that wasn't a problem necessarily, but on any other car I would have reported it as something that sounded like a hole in the exhaust symptom somewhere. Since I used to own and operate a taxi and my living depended on that being right I got pretty good at reporting things so that our maintenance mechanic would get a clue to what was wrong and fix it pronto. It was identical to sounds I had heard in other vehicle, sounds that were helpful to my mechanics then that turned out to be exhaust things (these were about the American cabs I had). It really does sound like that in my Suburu.

 

4) on the way to the grocery store in town last night I saw that the temp. gauge wasn't working at all, so I called the mechanic, my neighbor, and said I was coming back and that I needed this looked into and fixed before I could go anywhere, it was that serious to me.

 

My deceased partner was a master mechanic, and he told me that he got really fed up with fixing the cars of acquaintences and friends because regardless of the cause they would pester him with everything that went awry after that, even things that he knew were clearly not related. It put him in a very bad position, so he would help people on the side of the road but beyond that he did everything possible to stick to only working in his shop.

 

So I need to say here that I definitely do NOT suspect that these things were created by the mechanic, at least not out of any possible error he made, thoughI really hope that some inadvertent bump might have been responsible. I totally trust him and at the same time I need this rectified, for that 3-hour round trip to town to get food and also for a funeral that will require about a 300-mile round trip.

 

When the mechanic looked at things last night I very much assumed that he would find some dumb little thing, like wires loose or not connected (the check engine light had come on only once before, about 6 weeks ago coming out of my smog guy's repair lot, and he apologized as he reconnected two green wires with translucent green ends and said he'd neglected to reconnect the timing. I am 99% sure that that was what he did, but he did reconnect something and say that, and after that there was no light on.).

 

Then I hoped it was a fuse thing, since the cover to that compartment had been removed during the repair or diagnostic process, which I knew because it hadn't been replaced. He looked at those and said that nothing was wrong.

 

I looked at stuff today so I could report more accurately, and in the fuse compartment all had regular-looking clear middles except 3, which were yellow. These were translucent.

 

There were two that were recessed, one of which was yellow, and those were just to the left of a square thing, also yellow, but opaque and like the yellow of the happy face icon below. It had a place on top where it kind of looked like the female end of a phone cord, empty. It was square and larger than the regular fuses.

 

Anyway, he'd said that those were all good, so I expect that these empty and yellow fuses are like they should be????

 

I then asked him if it could be the thermostat, and he showed me a flap/lever-type thing, just to the left of a housing, where he said that the thermostat is. I guess that the impression I got was that it was a pretty big thing to check that, with much to remove. I'm willing if that's needed, but of course would like to check every simple thing first.

 

The trip to get food is also very important because there have been a weird number of deaths lately, and one is my father's sister-in-law, and I have to get down for that funeral and to also take food. I also have to get food for a local pastor here, who has been so inundated with other people's needs due to a fatal crash here of an 18-year-old that he's not getting what he and his family need, due to his own lack of resources and death of his cousin, another minister, in an accident on that same night.

 

Worst of all, I had already told people I would bring things, and I sure don't want to not do that. I'm committed.

 

I would greatly appreciated any help with this.

 

Mary

[ca95965]

oops, wrong forum, I will go to the right one and submit it there. Sorry

[coloradosubarules]

That was pretty funny. Did you compare a Subaru to a VW? I had to go wipe the tears from my Legacys headlights. She was crushed. You apologize for that.