feel my pain

2000 w/154,xxx. Driving cross country, CA to NY. 200 miles in and the car starts overheating 30 miles past Barstow. Got towed back to Barstow. Water pump and thermostat need to be replaced. They can't get the parts until tomorrow morning. ~$250 for parts. Another ~$250 for labor ($95/hr). This really sucks. Especially with my tools in the trunk looking at me. No parts store nearby though. Damn desert. It also sucks my A/c compressor is dead. At least by not replacing that before the trip I have $ to take it up the A from these guys.

2000 w/154,xxx. Driving cross country, CA to NY. 200 miles in and the car starts overheating 30 miles past Barstow. Got towed back to Barstow. Water pump and thermostat need to be replaced. They can't get the parts until tomorrow morning. ~$250 for parts. Another ~$250 for labor ($95/hr). This really sucks. Especially with my tools in the trunk looking at me. No parts store nearby though. Damn desert. It also sucks my A/c compressor is dead. At least by not replacing that before the trip I have $ to take it up the A from these guys.

FWIW most auto parts stores won't have the water pump in stock anyways. Also FYI, 3.5L engines can be driven up to 100 miles with no coolant before serious engine damage will occur. This feature is built into all Northstar derived engines :).

Thats definitely sucks, I hate paying someone else to do something you can do yourself for half the price.

I had my car refuse to crank with a big fat Security light after I turned it off while waiting for a train to cross this morning. Another reminder that I need a new ignition switch.

A friendly stranger helped me push it out of the middle of the expressway, almost got hit in doing so. Both him and my car. Im talking like screaming tires, a couple feet away from my door kind of hit. As usual it started after I let it sit for 10-15 minutes.

I was almost creamed by a Ram yesterday. The highway had gone down to 1 lane in a constuction zone so everyone was going about 45mph. The Ram I saw getting on the highway less than an 1/8 mile from the incedent. Well he must not have realized traffic was slowing ahead of where he got on and sped way up cause the next thing I know I hear a horn and squeeling tires and look in my rear view to see him barreling down on me and swerve into the dirt in the median before stopping in a cloud of dust. That would have sucked if he hit me, almost everything I own is in my trunk and back seat.

Of other interest

Through 3 tanks of gas
tank 1 27.5 mpg
tank 2 25.5 mpg
tank 3 27.5 mpg

Kind of low highway numbers but my car is carrying a few extra hundred pounds. Also most of this driving was up grades and through mountains. Finally many places the cruise was set at 82mph (limit was 75) Factoring out the time for stops for gas, bathroom and food the average speed over 837miles was 69.7 mph.

Depending on where you were driving you may have had some ethanol in your gas, which for me seems to have dropped my mpgs a couple points. So that could have an effect. I know here in Missouri we have some ethanol in our gas by default, its no longer an optional thing.

The mountains and grades will kill your gas mileage in a hurry for sure though, so all things considered those arent bad numbers.

Yeah some places have 85 octane which had 10% ethanol if I remember correctly. I didnt use that and used 87 or in one place (Beaver, UT) 88 even though it was considered mid grade in those places.

Here are some final numbers

4th tank - 29.2 mpg
5th - 30.6
6th - 29.7
7th - 29.2
8th - 27.5
9th - 28.7

Average 28.3

Total spent on gas - $457.57

And 4 quarts of oil

Total miles driven 3011

Total time 60 hours

Total driving time 42 hours

Oh yeah total gallons of gas - 117.889 (that includes the 13.884 gallons I put in now that I'm here)

I also bought a cheap GPS before the trip and can't praise it enough. It was a Garmin Nuvi 200 which I bought on sale for $130.

Thats a long time on the road, looks like you didnt have much downtime either.

Good fuel numbers though, looks like not having the AC to drag you down and a free-spinning water pump pulley really helped you pull down some good results haha. Hey....youve gotta just laugh at these things. Sorry you had trouble though.

I wish we didnt have ethanol, it used to be labeled as 10% ethanol, but now its not even labeled, its just in there, in all the grades I think. State regulations I believe, might have been federal.

Yeah the o2 sensors are original too. Some new ones could have helped out a little. I have no doubt that in a better state of tune with 400lbs less crap in the trunk and back seat the car would easily do over 30 mpg highway.