We don’t really need two
cars. Once in a while we use both at the same time, but we could easily
work around that with minimal planning and cooperation.
Then the rains came.
The roads flooded. We drove through some puddles. Okay, more than
puddles, we drove through some flooded roads. We’ve been doing this for
years with the Jeeps we’ve had. No problem. The van is high
clearance. No problem.
A couple days later, the
two front wheels quit talking to each other. The wheels are not
independent of each other; the van has all-wheel drive, so there is a transfer
case up there. I noticed the problem while backing out of a parking space
with the steering wheel turned. It felt like the pavement was really
rough, but it wasn’t that rough. The two front wheels weren’t able to run
at different speeds to accommodate the turning radius. So the van has
been in time-out at the Ford dealer for the last two weeks. They
diagnosed the problem and made repairs to the transfer case in front.
After a couple tries, they just replaced the whole thing and that took care of
it. We got the van back today. New car warranty. No charge.
It’s perfect. And we’re sure glad we had the Mazda to drive while the van
was out of service.
The timing is great.
We leave on a trip to Arizona in two weeks. For the last five months, the
van has been configured as just an empty vehicle to do errands around
town. Now we have it back as a blank canvas inside.
We can reconfigure it with
all our camping stuff and make sure everything is just right for our road trip.
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