Can use thoughts and prayers, "Clipper Dawg" is sick

[kats_melody]

For those of you who don't know, "Clipper Dawg" is my grooming van.

She has been very faithful and given me only the least bit of trouble, mostly sensors that didn't take kindly to Ohio road salt, and they have been replaced one by one. We think she likes her new home in Florida and the care she gets, much better than her previous life as a fleet repair truck.

Last Friday, hubby and I were on our way to a grooming appointment when the van lost power and began to blow black smoke. Then it would recover and run fine, but would lose power again. Finally, she said no more and stopped a block from the customer's house. We had to cancel the appointment and all of Saturday's work. Thankfully Monday is our usual day off, and our Ford dealer is putting their best diesel mechanic on it.

There's not a lot of money in the kitty for repairs, just to tow her back cost $110. No prospect of a loan from a bank to finance a fix, either.

If the repair is too expensive, we tow her home, save up for the repair out of our own money, and hope we still have customers if and when we open up again.

My husband is depressed to the point where it scares me. He worked so hard to make my dream of owning my own mobile a reality, and he thinks he has let me down.

Any positive thinking and/or mentions to the god that you worship on our behalf would be deeply appreciated.

Thanks to all,

Laura

[Debbiedogs]

Can you...

Can you park her and work from where she sits temporarily?

Can you groom at your home temporarily?

What about contacting other mobilers to see if you can "rent" their mobile? (I know many won't, but someone may be in the market for this.)

Check the ads here (classifieds) and look under Florida jobs and see if anyone needs someone for a while - you can send some of your customers if you can't do them in your rig or at home.

Sorry - such a drag - getting through and over such obstacles is so wearing!!

[mylady]

I KNOW how scary that can be. I am hoping it is something simple and easy to fix that won't cost a lot of money.
I know this does not help you at all right now, but because my van breaks down or won't start from time to time (though this winter she's always started thankfully) I have AAA because I know tow bills can get pricey. It has saved me a lot of money over the last year.
When my husband was out of work he became severely depressed. It was scary and frustrating for me because nothing I could do made him any better. He felt useless and like a failure. It's very hard to see someone we love like that. I wish I had a magic answer that made him better, but it wasn't until he found work that he was able to really find his way out of it. The one thing I tried to do, which helped a bit, not much, but some, was to try to be supportive and vocalize it. He was feeling really down one day, telling me he was a failure, a loser, etc and all I said was "we'll make it through this, you'll find another job, I believe in you." I am sure you are already very supportive of him and know him better than any of us. I just know for myself, my husband just needed a lot more positive reinforcement during that time.
I am hoping that Clipper Dawg comes through this and is back on the road soon. Would your mechanic allow you to make payments if necessary? My mechanic sees me so often when I've needed to he's allowed it. Heck, he knows he'll see me again soon.
I don't know where the silver lining is in all of this, but I believe there always is one and hopefully it will show itself soon. Please let us know how you are doing and what is going on with the van. I'll be thinking of you and praying for a happy outcome to all of this.

[kats_melody]

No, options are limited. Zoning laws say I can't groom at the house. The dealership will give me net 30 so long as the bill is less than $700. At $100 an hour labor, that adds up quick.

AAA won't tow a commercial vehicle here, I wish we could get a road service contract. We had to clean out the petty cash drawer to pay the tow truck driver.

It's lunch time and still no word from the dealer. So I think a simple fix is out of the question...

[lightning]

Does your insurance coverage for your business not cover loss of income due to things like this? Also, is it possible to keep your appointments by grooming the dogs at their place of residence..like house call groomers do? As far as the equipment, can't you improvise?

[kats_melody]

Not on the road yet, but we know what doesn't work.

I asked the rep at Governor Insurance when we got a policy from them. They told me they cannot write a business interruption insurance policy of any type in the state of Florida. So if the van breaks down, gets destroyed in a wreck, a hurricane comes and closes the roads, we're out of luck.

Thankfully, it appears that the engine is fine. It was scary driving down the road and suddenly losing power and blowing black smoke like a locomotive. The dealership service department has it somewhat narrowed down to an electrical fault that keeps the fuel injection system from operating. They've had it for a week now and it still doesn't run. We have most of the bills paid for the month, and hubby is feeling better knowing that the problem is not major mechanical and not due to anything he did in building the van. The problem stumped him and is stumping the diesel mechanic at the dealership, and both of them are pretty sharp guys. The service manager says they are calling Ford technical support to see if they can provide any insight.

If all else fails and the van is not repairable, one of my customers is a Haulmark trailer dealer, I do her two poodles. As they say down this way "mebbie we can do bidness" :-) I would prefer to work out of my van though. I don't think my husband has another two month conversion job in him.

Thanks to all for the support and prayers, I do believe in divine intervention and things happening for a reason. Maybe I'll be back on the road this week.

Laura

[Misty]

Hi Laura,
When my Ford diesel did the blowing smoke, slowing down thing it was because it was very low on oil. There was an oil leak inside the engine. I took it to many mechanics before I finally found one who knew exactly what to look for. Everyone wanted to pull the engine and rebuild it to the tune of 6 grand. Then I was at a customers house and a friend of hers was there getting ready to go to work, I asked him what he did and he said he was a large diesel repairman. I said "oh I am looking for a small diesel repairman". Then I found out he was Ford certified. He came to my house and took the cover off the inside of the engine and showed me what the problem was in 10 minutes. With the inside cover off you could see where the oil was leaking when he revved the accelerator. Of course he was an alcoholic so it took me a whole week to get him to actually get the right parts and spend the time to fix it. But $800 was sure a whole lot better than a minimum of 6 grand.

Good luck with your truck,
Misty

[kats_melody]

Thanks to all, Clipper Dawg is ALIVE!

The folks at the Ford dealership put in a Saturday workday (they normally don't, but they are really backed up) and we got a call this morning. She's running and purring like a contented cat. The problem turned out to be a blown fusible link and corrosion in the cable. Replace the cable, the fusible link, and tighten everything to spec and she started right up!

Thanks to all of you for your good thoughts and prayers. The repair was less than $200, my only loss was a weeks worth of appointments that I now have rescheduled for THIS week. I will be VERY busy!

Laura