What I got to do today.
However, before I can get to that, I need to take you through my epic adventure that started last Wednesday, coming home from work:
Wednesday, 8:00AM - I arrive home at work after a fun hour of traffic in Jersey City. Head to bed immediately.
Wednesday, 5:50PM - Leave house to go to work.
5:52PM - Turn key to discover battery is near-dead.
5:58PM - Successfully jump-start vehicle off of my wife's car.
6:10PM - Leave house after letting battery charge and disconnecting jumper cables.
6:13PM - Encounter accident on route to work.
6:32PM - Encounter another accident on route to work.
6:43PM - Encounter a third accident on route to work.
6:45PM - Call work to let them know I'll be late.
7:00PM - Shift officially starts.
7:04PM - Approach building and enter parking garage.
7:05PM - Park car, turn off car, and exit vehicle.
7:05PM - Notice my lights are on.
7:05PM - Notice my light switch is off.
7:05PM - Wondering what the fuck is going on.
7:06PM - Notice one of my fog lights are out.
7:06PM - Start to disassemble light assembly, assuming this is what is causing the lights to not go off.
7:14PM - Successfully remove light from assembly.
7:14PM - Notice the lights are still not going off.
7:14PM - Curse.
7:15PM - Decide to replace fog light bulb anyway and start to take the stuff out of my trunk to get to my spare bulbs.
7:23PM - Discover I have every possible spare bulb for my car except for the one I need.
7:23PM - Curse.
7:25PM - After regaining composure, decide to check fuse box for any blown fuses.
7:29PM - Find no relevant blown fuses in main fuse box.
7:29PM - Decide to check the auxiliary fuse box, which is a pain in the ass to get to.
7:35PM - Discover no relevant fuses.
7:35PM - Curse.
7:36PM - Give up and decide to call my dad (the mechanic) for ideas.
7:38PM - He reveals nothing can be done now and to disconnect the battery to save it for the ride home.
7:42PM - Successfully disconnect battery.
7:42PM - Start to put away everything and rush into work.
7:49PM - Enter office room.
9:45PM - Finally get time to go to the bathroom and wash the grease off my hands.
9:48PM - Return to office and sanitize keyboard.
9:50PM - Research issue online.
After my research, I divine that the issue was related to the PSE Pump (Pneumatic Security Equipment Pump), which is a vacuum pump that controls the locking mechanisms of the car. Additionally, the PSE controls the lights in the vehicle, this would explain why the lights would not turn off. It turns out the most common reason for this to fail is water getting into the trunk and damaging the PSE.
Here's the fun part...bringing it to Mercedes would have been a $1100 repair, between parts and labor. Also, the part itself costs almost $500. However, it looks like something I could replace myself. So, I have a plan of action at this point.
Thursday, 7:00AM - Shift officially ends.
7:10AM - Morning shift arrives.
7:22AM - Leave office to go home.
7:25AM - Arrive at car.
7:25AM - Start to reconnect battery.
7:28AM - Battery reconnected.
7:28AM - Lights come on.
7:28AM - Curse.
7:29AM - Leave parking garage and start home.
7:38AM - Notice a slight smell while driving home. Figure it is from the vehicle in front of me.
7:45AM - Notice a slightly stronger smell while driving home. Decide not to worry.
7:58AM - Notice a very strong smell while driving home. Still decide not to worry.
8:00AM - Notice huge plumes of smoke coming from vehicle while driving home.
8:00AM - Start to worry.
8:03AM - Pull into driveway.
8:04AM - Battery disconnected in great haste.
8:05AM - Check vehicle for fire.
8:10AM - Notice no flame but extremely bad smell coming from car.
8:11AM - Decide to say "fuck it" and go to bed.
Anyway, at this point, I decide to ignore the car all day. Instead, I play Oblivion all day and destroy Daedra with extreme prejudice. I sleep very well.
After waking up around 2:00PM the next day, I call up my father, who was going to come over to help on the basement. Instead, we get to play with the car. As my father gets some errands done before getting over to the house, I start researching the location of the PSE and go out to disassemble the trunk enough to get to the PSE. First off, the trunk did have water in it, and there was rust underneath the PSE Here's some fun pics:
This is the PSE Pump:
So, yeah, not fun. It smelled horrible, too. I'm going to be Febreezing my car all week. Anyway, at least I knew where the smoke was coming from. I was just praying the damage to the vehicle was kept to the vacuum pump. After disassembling the side of the trunk to check the drainage on the sides of the car, everything looks okay, thankfully. However, there is a drain hole in the bottom of the trunk itself which appears to be the source of the water. Also, the presence of rust indicated the water was there for a little while, so we felt we had safely determined the source of the water. So, time to head to Mercedes to buy the part.
That in itself was an adventure, but any commute in New Jersey can pretty much don this title. Anyway, after getting to the place and shelling out $350 (used my dad's corporate discount), we headed back with new pump in hand. We reconnected the pump and wrapped it in plastic to make sure any water inside the trunk would not get to the pump. I then proceeded to reassemble the trunk.
At least I had some good news out of this. As I was reassembling the trunk, I took a look at my trunk-mounted CD changer, which was not working properly (didn't recognize any CDs). Inspection showed the optical connector was inherently loose in how it connected to the changer. So, we took a wood shim and shoved it in the connector, duct-taped it. So, now, I have a car that works, along with a working CD player!
Of course, now I'm $350 in the hole, and my car still smells like burnt hair and wires.