5/30/07-Don't Fall Into This Maintenance Trap

It started just over two weeks ago. Something was not quite right with my reliable car. Lights and messages were flashing but nothing appeared to be wrong. The first indicator light to appear was the airbag. After grabbing the owner's manual and checking the section under messages, I discovered that when this light is on there is a malfunction with the airbag.

Thank you handy owner's manual for clearing that up!

When the low tire pressure light came on and my tires checked out fine I knew I had to take it into the shop. The mechanic hooked up his fancy analyzer and began searching for an explanation, only to discover four separate error messages.

A few days later (airbag light still on) I ran over a deer carcass instead of running into oncoming traffic. Driving in Minnesota is full of obstacles like this! What do you know, the low tire pressure light comes on again. I'm thinking, stupid false alarm, right? Unfortunately, not this time. I actually had a flat tire (darned roadkill). It turned out I had a bone sliver in my tire that caused the flat. With all the complicating electrical testing, the cause of all my problems was a simple fix. Replace the battery. Once a new one was installed the messages cleared, and everything was OK.

In the world of maintenance, I've seen many people get trapped into always assuming a problem is the same every time it comes up. They usually implement a knee-jerk reaction to quickly fix the problem leaving the real issue unresolved. Don't fall into this trap. Pay attention to each problem and look at it as it's own isolated event. Then work it backwards to find similarities (and differences). This is good maintenance.