So I haven't been working much so I haven't really had to deal with this, but my low oil light has been coming on recently. No problem, right? I'll just buy some oil or get an oil change... if I can gather up enough energy to leave the house and do yet another chore...

So I've been ignoring this problem for a while, and then my "check gauges" light started coming on. So I looked at my gauges and didn't really see anything wrong... not looking forward to whatever repair bill this is.

The low oil light was only coming on when the engine was cold, and would then disappear if I had been driving a little while and turned the car on again later that day. No problem right? Cars are like computers; you turn them off and on and they get fixed, yeah?

So last night I realized what the "check gauges" light meant. My car was red-line overheating and I didn't even notice. OOPS! I could only drive it about 4 miles before it was maxing out the thermostat and I wasn't even noticing, thus the "check gauges".

I still had a few more miles to go and I didn't really want to risk totaling my car, as any big repair will be more than the value of the car, which I might pay anyway just to keep this sentimental hunk of junk rolling. In any case, I had my roommate pick me up so I could deal with it today.

Luckily there was a Walmart like a mile away from where I was parked, so I figured I could just drive there before overheating again and get my oil changed and fluids replaced and all that. Unfortunately, I got there and it seemed like it was closed. I think they may have been out to lunch but it didn't matter. Turns out Walmart doesn't top off your fluids which is probably why their prices are so low.

So I went into the damn Walmart... man I hate that place... There were so many people in there it was pretty intense honestly. Gotta watch out for that COVID you know what I'm sayin'? lol... picked up some oil and some antifreeze with distilled water to mix it with.

I was able to put all 2 quarts of oil into the engine... which is quite a bit. The entire engine only holds like what? 4 quarts? something like that... so it was damn low. Turned the car on and drove it home and it overheated again.

I've never actually put coolant into my car before. There are warnings in the manual and under the hood that specify that doing it wrong could result in catastrophic failure, so that's cool. Apparently the coolant system is a closed-loop pressurized system... who knew!

After looking at the manual again I finally saw that there is a backup reserve tank for the radiator so I wouldn't have to mess with the radiator directly. You just gotta fill up the reserve tank and the radiator will automatically draw from this tank if necessary. I'm guessing it was very necessary.

At first I didn't even see that the reserve tank even existed because the cap was so old that it was essentially broken off in such a way that all of the directions and instructions on the cap were essentially gone. The manual gave me the hint that I needed: to know that was the correct place.

I took off the cap and there was a dipstick connected to it so I could actually measure the fluid levels. That was a nice change of pace because the other instructions were "check the fluid level in the bottle"... and there is no such bottle as far as I could see. In any case... the fluid levels in the reserve tank were ZERO... so that's cool.

I was pretty annoyed because it wasn't that long ago that I got an oil change. They should have topped off my fluids. Then I realized the last time I got that oil change was again at shit-ass Walmart who had just told me an hour earlier that they don't do that... lol. So I figured it out and the last time anyone put coolant into my car was like 4 years ago... again lol. I'm an adult! I guess you get what you pay for eh?

I filled up the reserve tank and turned the car on and it overheated again after a few minutes. At this point I'm thinking "fuck now I have to take it in for real". But when I turned the car off I could hear the glugging of my greedy radiator drawing fluid from the reserve tank... so I decided to give it a few more tries.

More than a gallon of antifreeze/distilled-water later my car stopped red-lining on the thermostat... success! My $20 jerry rigged solution actually worked... surprising honestly, but then again my car is a beast that just doesn't quit. I still need to put a lot more work into it like tires, filters, and whatever else.

Analysis

Dealing with all this nonsense reminded me of how bad our school systems are. They'll teach you how to put glitter on a poster but not how to check and replace fluids in an engine? Cool story, America. Seriously though, these are things that are super easy to teach and super easy to do, and the only reason why it's not easy is because of rampant ignorance and dependence on this broken system. Ignorance by design is the greatest offense perpetrated by the school system.

It's also absolutely ridiculous how many taxes and fees and regulations we have to put up with just to legally drive on public roads in the first place. Add to that the difficulty of finding a mechanic you can actually trust and it all starts adding up quickly. If only we had communities that actually cared about their citizens. Indifference and tribalism win. This is yet another one of those societal scaling issues crypto is attempting to fix. Trust is the most valuable resource.

I wouldn't even have to worry about this stuff if I was actually being paid a fair wage. For any service I might want to pay for, I essentially have to work several factors more for things that I really can't do without. My work isn't valued very highly, yet somebody has to do it. Or perhaps someone doesn't have to do it because human slave labor is currently cheaper than automation at this point. Fun stuff. Good talk.

Conclusion

Just turn it off and then on again. Works every time.

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