How Many Fuel Pumps Does it Take to Make an Explorer Run?

We had the Explorer towed into the new garage on Friday.  He was too busy to get to it that day. We had a rental through New Years Day, we hoped it would be done on the 31st. They never got to on Monday either. Wednesday we had to take the rental back on C's lunch break (see the previous post about that lovely debacle), so I really hoped it would be ready by Wednesday afternoon so I could bring C home from work at 5pm.

It wasn't ready. They'd gotten to it late and had excuses. She said it was the fuel pump. She didn't want to hear me talk about the other garage and what they'd said it was. She reminded me of Mrs. Greene my mean old  (ancient) Geometry teacher in high school who always made me feel like I was 8 years old and really stupid. So she says it's the fuel pump, and he has two options.  They have a dealer who supplies a cheap one that will work, or I can have the Ford one. The quotes were $384 or $853....  WHAT??!! How on earth could one fuel pump cost basically 3 times as much as the other one? She was like,  which one do you want? I wanted the cheap one, obviously!  Sheesh!  So, she said they'd work on it but it probably wouldn't be ready til Thursday morning. She'd call.

Christopher had to walk home from work. We called Corina to see if she'd pick him up but never answered her phone.  She finally called later and when we asked if she'd take him to work Thursday morning, she hemmed and hawed and basically didn't want to. He walked to work Thursday morning. 28 degrees outside.

So late Thursday morning the garage lady called to tell me it was ready and she said she'd come pick me up since it was so close. That was nice. I liked her better already. I'd not gotten much sleep of course, since I work night, but hoped to be able to take a nap after I got the car... So, I get there, pay $100 in cash, put the rest on the card, get the keys and leave.  It was so weird to drive it again!
First thing I noticed was the gas gauge was on or even below empty.  I knew that was odd since I'd been putting gas it it from the jugs since we thought it might have been out of gas since it wouldn't start. I also knew from experience that getting a fuel pump replaced can mess with your gas gauge... so I went to the gas station down the hill from the garage and put $20 in it.  The needle didn't move.  Still read empty.  I was not going to live with that AT ALL.  So from the gas station, I called the garage and explained the situation.  She said to bring it back by at 2pm. That gave me time to go pay bills and run errands I needed to run and take a nap. I got back up and took it back to the garage by 2:30.  They finally looked at it by 3pm.  I was supposed to get C from work at 4 for his dinner break so he could take the car back to work and drive it home at 9pm. I was getting worried.

The guy finally comes back and says the fuel pump they put on it was bad afterall. They'd have to drop the tank, replace the pump and see if it was any good... and they had to have the part sent over to them first. He said he would *try* to have it done by 5:30.  SIGH....  So, I tell him to go ahead, and I called C to let him know.  I guess the lady overheard me saying I would be working hat night on about 3 hours of sleep, cause she came out of her office and offered to take me home and call when it was ready and come back and pick me up again.  Seriously love that about this place. So, I went home and went right to sleep. I got a call at 4:30.  The 2nd fuel pump also had a gas gauge floater thingy that SANK.  SIGH...  So, they were going to order 2 more fuel pumps with would be there in the morning and they'd put one of them on and hope it worked, then try the 4th if needed.  I figured the odds were in my favor.  Sure one out of 4 new off-brand fuel pumps would actually work, right? 

Thankfully Corina brought C home from work that night at least.

Ironically, Friday we didn't have anywhere to go.  We were both off work, though we did have garbage that had piled up on the back porch that we really needed to dump. So, Friday morning she called and C took the call.  The Explorer was ready and we could call whenever I was awake and ready and she'd come pick me up to go get it. I'm not sure why they didn't offer to get him or he didn't offer to go get it.. but there ya go.  So I woke up a couple hours later, got the ride and finally had my Explorer back. HOORAY!!  I still don't know if it was the third or the fourth pump they tried.

I'll bet they never offer the cheap fuel pump to another customer.  I may have been the last.

So, we dumped an Explorer full of garbage bags then went home and made dinner for everyone (MIL came back over and F's bf was here), so we had Family Dinner Night and I got to play games with everyone which was nice.  I usually work on FDN.

When the ground is either dry or frozen, we're going to pull the Exp into the yard and push the van back out of the driveway so we can drive it forward around the block and hopefully get it to back into the driveway. That will be so much fun.

I wonder what it's like to lead an uneventful and boring life?  Would sure be a welcome change!!