when niggles and screw driver meets.

To say that I'm a perfectionist, I might beg to differ. However, when it comes to cars, I might have to admit it. Beyond my abilities.

Here's the picture: For those who sat in the van previously, the air-con broke down. So the part finally arrived and she went for a 2 day 1 night stay at the garage, having the dashboard dismantled so as to get that coil thing replaced.

No hands can match machine precision, thus when she came back the build quality would be lost. For instance, there are loose panel and therefore the indicator became flimsy. Being critical, I wished how much the small niggles can disappear. Especially when you cant avoid the indicator while driving.

So, the day came: It was last Friday, I had sent my dad to the polyclinic for check up. And now I'm alone, with the van keys, at our home carpark, with all sorts of tools available in the boot. Too tempting.

Hence, I got my hands dirty. The horrible sounding of the stalk was traced and linked to that loose housing on the steering column, whose screw was missing thus therefore not tighten. Search the toolbox for the correct sized screw, and in a very awkward position with some sweat it was tighten and secured.

Having fixed one problem and feeling confident, no prize for guessing correctly what the over zealous me would do next. Another major eye sore is that air con knob: the mech haven't align it properly during assembly, that why it's now pointing at the wrong way. Pointing at windscreen heater, it actually means front blowers.
How hard can it be?

The plastic cover of the center console was pulled out easily as how you do with a CPU front casing. Then with those tools bought during the Fiat-punto-bumper-came-off incident of Oct 07, the knob assembly was unscrewed and loosen. So far so good.

Then, it was stuck. Apparently it involves some cables too, which the ignorant me is, well, ignorant of. Thinking that I could just put it back and forget about it, I was wrong. Some thing else behind had fallen, and all 3 knobs now lost their connection.

That's when trouble really strikes. I have screw it up big time now. Oh god, previously it was only pointing at the wrong way. Now, it cant do anything else. Imagine what my dad would do, if first he found that I went to dismantle the thing and now, the air con is permanently forever stuck at the lowest temperature and blowing in your face. Damn. What follows, is just a long long chain of vulgarities from myself at myself.

Roller coaster emotion ride has not reach the peak. Right at this moment, the phone rang. My dad called and he is ready to be pick up. Meaning i have 15 minutes left to fix the shit i created for myself. Dead.

Be calm, I told myself, and analyze the problem. I regain consciousness, visualize & figure out the assembly, and successfully pulled the fallen part back in position and fix the console back. Done in 11 minutes.

With the back still sweaty and palms still dirty, I fire up the engine and went straight to my dad location. And certainly, when I see my dad i boasted about how i had fix the indicator but mumbled no word about the crisis i had just survived from.


Honestly, if fixing such stuff are as easy as doing DIY computers, then cars wouldn't cost as much and all pre-school kids can write iphone game codes already. I guess.

.