Smokin' Stratus

Well, Tiona has been complaining about her car making ugly noises (she described them as gurgling noises). Well, of course, it took a while before I finally heard the noises! When I heard them, I thought, "I have no idea what's going on." After thinking about it for a while and trying to make the elusive noise be heard again, I finally decided it was coming from the area of the belt. Tiona also told me that one time while making the noise her AC wasn't blowing out cold air anymore. So, I decided that maybe the AC was going out, but I still wasn't sure. We ended up driving her Stratus to my parents the other day so I could have my dad take another look at it (but we forgot), and on the way home we noticed that smoke was billowing out from under the hood. I decided that we shouldn't drive it anymore... I took one of my dad's tricks to try to decide what was going on. My dad taught me that if you take a broom handle or a plunger handle and place one end on a part in the engine, you can put your ear to the other end and use it like a stethoscope. Well, the AC was REALLY noisy, so my hunch that the AC was dying was getting stronger.

Yesterday I had an epiphany while hitting the snooze button, which consisted of removing the belt and seeing if the noise stopped. After removing the belt the car was miraculously cured, but it was only temporary since without a belt there is no alternator... I spun the alternator pulley by hand and it was nice and smooth, then I spun the AC and it was wobbly and grinding. Spending money to get the Stratus fixed is on the bottom of our priority list (especially since we have to buy tires for it this month), so I bought a shorter belt and skipped the AC. Now the car drives great, but now it's hot and humid... Ah-well, I guess that it is my job to drive the Stratus now and let Tiona have the car with working AC...