The "newer" of our identical 1996 Chevrolet Camaros hadn't given us any trouble since we bought it about a year ago until the "V.A.T.S" system started acted up when the cold weather hit a couple of weeks ago. The GM "V.A.T.S", an acronym for "vehicle anti theft system" or "Pass-Key", was a redundant theft deterrant system where the ignition key not only had to match the ignition cylinder, the resistor in the key had to match what the car's "PCM", program control module, was looking for. If the PCM "thinks" that the car is being stolen, the car can't be started. Problem is when the system gets wonky, even when you have the correct key in the ignition, sometimes, and in particular since the cold weather hit recently, the car thinks its being stolen. While the car does start up sometimes after you wait ten minutes for the system to reset, it's consistent in doing so. The car, therefore, is unreliable. I doubt that the cold weather has anything to do with the problems we've been having but the timing is a little fishy.
With our older son heading back to Dayton this coming weekend, he would have taken the "newer" Camaro down there but with the VATS acting up, I made the executive parenting decision that he would take the older Camaro down there instead. A bit of a hassle considering it needs an alignment, a muffler and the headliner needs to be repaired but at least the VATS doesn't act up on it. What's more, with my being out of town this week, getting everything done would fall on my 19 and 20 year old sons. Not the best of plans. Well, the alignment getting done and the muffler being replaced would. My plan for the falling down headliner would be just to cut the damn thing out until I get a new one. Again, it's always something.
I turned over the "old" Camaro yesterday, we call it the old Camaro because we bought it first and it's three or four months older than the other one, just to get it running and I'll be damned, there was a massive frozen puddle of something on the driveway. Fearing the worst, that it could be another coolant leak, after I checked the coolant level and saw that it was topped off, I took the car for a spin through our lovely neighborhood just to see if I could get the temperature up on it and sure enough, all good and the car responded as well as it always has except...for a faint smell of gas.
I got it home and got under it and saw that it was leaking gas! from its rusted out metal fuel lines right under the driver's seat. Good lord. So now both of our Camaros are off line until further notice. I totally get now how some people have multiple cars on their property all of which are not running. "They'll get around to fixin' 'em..." Thing is, do they?
The plan now is for our son to drive my Monte Carlo to Dayton and my wife and I will be a one car household until we get the Camaro's sorted out. I'm confident that we will but it's amazing how things converge on top of one another. When it rains it pours or in this case, when it snows it's a blizzard.
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