Here’s an example of one Christian brother helping out another.

I have a 1998 Plymouth Neon that I thought mainly just needed an O2 sensor replaced. Last week I brought the car and the sensor to John over at Manning Equipment, and he and his mechanics took a look at it.

Now, I don’t completely understand all this, but it turns out the engine mount bolts were both gone, so the engine was just sort of hanging out in the compartment. That would explain some of the extra vibrations and noise. Also, apparently there were some cables caught up on each other, down with the throttle and transmission. The result was that the gas pedal was tough and the car didn’t accelerate so well. Plus, when you really stomped on the gas, the car slammed out of drive and into neutral. Yeah. Not so good. Oh, and the transmission was a little out of whack.

They also noticed a couple sparkplugs were in really bad shape, which makes John suspicious that a couple of the injectors are going bad. Or maybe they’re just dirty. I’ll hope for that.

So, they fixed these problems, and even just driving back to my apartment this evening, I can tell the car is operating way better.

While I don’t need the car much for work, this car is really important to me because I use it to drive back and forth from Lansing to Midland each week, to see my daughters, who now live up in Midland with my ex. The car now operates better and is safer to drive.

John, James, and whoever else may have helped out: thanks.