When It Rains, It Pours
Welcome back to another episode of How Fucking Bad Can It Get starring Dodge Ram trucks and today’s special guest, Dometic Refrigerators.
If you’ve been following the Dodge drama, then you know things just keep going from fucked to totally fucked. I haven’t updated any blog posts in awhile so let me fill you in. As of my last Dodge post, I was sitting In Albuquerque, NM awaiting the Dodge techs to diagnose my newest check engine light issues. Well, that culminated with they weren’t sure, it seemed fine, so they cleared the code and sent me on my way. I made it 50 miles before I broke down in Cubero, NM. Luckily I saw an indian RV park there that was only $20 a night and that is where I stayed, in a glorified parking lot, for an entire week.
Back at the same Dodge in Albuquerque, they discovered a missing bolt underneath the heater grid which had been missed during a routine recall back in September of 2023 and explained that the missing link in the emmissions system could have been to blame for everything. And I’m not gonna lie, this time even my dad believed them. Seven days later we hooked up and made it a whole 150 miles before breaking down in Holbrook, AZ, where I stayed for a few days while my parents worked out how to retrieve my trailer.
Once we were finally back in Vegas, I took my truck into a dealership here, but not the one that fraudulently falsified my smog in order to sell me a truck that had a hole in the emissions system. That dealership had my truck for nine days, cleaned the air filter, and replaced the turbo actuator. I took the truck home Friday and as of today, Monday, that truck is now back at the same dealership awaiting a new turbo. But let’s get serious, that’s not going to fix my problem. After a lot of time, money, and effort, as things have broken down, a pattern is beginning to emerge and it seems clear to me that I have a failing DPF system and potentially a faulty fuel pump, which is most likely the culprit of the other breaks, the intercooler and turbo failure just being symptoms of these original problems.
Before I bought this truck, I didn’t know anything about diesel engines, AT ALL. I wasn’t even entirely sure what the DEF fluid did or how it worked, but I can tell you now that I might have a future as a diesel mechanic because I’ve been forced to learn things I never even wanted to know. And as much as I had assumed that if I encountered problems on the road, I would just go to my local trusty dealership and have it checked out, I now know that that’s simply not possible because even those people don’t know what the fuck is going on. A lot of people go through life feigning knowledge and others know things because life put them in situations where they didn’t have a choice. I look at all these mother fuckers who cruise through life, not really knowing anything but believing everything, and I covet them, their peace, their ignorant existence. I’m sincerely jealous of all the people out there who just don’t know what the fuck is going on. Ignorance really is bliss.
Moving forward, there is no doubt that the warranty company is not going to cover my DPF failure, citing that I did not keep up the maintenance on my vehicle or that I drove it improperly, which leaves me to figure it out for myself, yet again. So first things first, we will be replacing the Crank Case Filter (CCV), removing the side of the motor and cleaning the EGR valve. I will also change the oil and change those filters before manually removing the DPF and sending it out for specialized cleaning. I am hoping that it can still be saved but that remains to be seen at this point. And while the temperature outside is only a balmy 108° in the middle of June in Las Vegas, I’m really looking forward to the next few weeks or even months of being stuck in this scorching shithole in an uninsulated metal cup. The A/C units are working overtime, and while I fully expected one of those to fail due to continual overload, I was instead surprised with a different type of failure: my refrugerator.
Yesterday I realized everything in the fridge was room temp after having just made an epic run to Costco. I took everyhting salvagable out and performed a manual defrost last night. However, this morning I made the realization that the freezer is performing fine, albeit the bottom frig compartment is doing nothing at all. After a few hours of YouTube videos and some chat rooms, I’ve landed on the probability of a faulty thermistor. If it’s not that (although I really do think it is) I’ll move on to a new computer board followed by a thermostat fan for the interior of the back compartment.
So if you see a half naked chick in a lounge chair under the ripped awning of a fifth wheel parked in someone’s yard drinking tall boy Modelos, just mind your business. I’m going through something ok?!