Consecutive bicycle work commute number 2265:
Got up early and loaded my bike into my truck, then dropped the truck off at the repair shop. From there I rode 7 miles to our company office. At the end of the day I'll reverse the process. Bike commuting really takes a lot of the pain out of the logistics of vehicle repair.
The ride in to the office was pretty easy. Temp was 32°F, but still very humid which made it feel a bit chillier. Still, that's crazy warm for a South Dakota January morning. I had the wind pushing me from the shop to the office. I'm not looking forward to fighting the wind tonight on the way back to the shop.
The day after Christmas I was getting my truck ready to leave on our annual trip to Ohio by doing the usual maintenance stuff. I noticed the coolant reservoir was almost empty, which seemed odd, so I topped it off. When I changed the oil it seemed a little thin, but it wasn't milky. Then I noticed antifreeze dripping out of the tail pipe. Uh oh, that's not good. I decided I didn't want to risk driving that vehicle 2000+ miles, so my brother generously loaned me his truck for the trip. While I hate that my truck is having mechanical problems, I'm very thankful that I made the discovery in my garage and not on the side of the road in the middle of Illinois.
I'm strongly suspecting a failed head gasket. If the mechanic concurs with my diagnosis, that may be the death blow to this 22 year old Ford Expedition. Outside of this latest mechanical issue, the truck is still in very nice shape due to it not being driven much because I commute by bicycle. However, due to the age and miles it probably is only worth about $3k on a good day. So I'm not sure it's worth sinking $5k into a head gasket repair. Which means I may be vehicle shopping in the near future. Yuck. I just got done vehicle shopping for my wife 3 months ago.
If it were just me I probably wouldn't replace the truck and would just rely even more on my bicycle. My son is a musician and uses my truck to haul his large drum kit around. Also because he's a musician, he has no money for a vehicle of his own which means he needs my vehicle to get him to and from gigs. I can buy a used mini-van for about 35%-50% of what a used large SUV would cost, and the van would actually haul even more than the SUV. I'm leaning that direction, much to my son's protest. He doesn't want to drive a mini-van. I've told him that since I'm spending the money I get to decide what I buy. That doesn't mean he's going to like it, though.