This morning, in a lightly falling snow, I took the Jimmy over to the nearest GMC dealer to have the flickering lights diagnosed. On the way, just to reenforce that the Jimmy needed attention, all the lights and gauges not only flickered, they went on and off several times.
When the service coordinator tried to start the car it wouldn’t. It was dead. They jumped the car and took it around to the service bay and I went into the lounge to be bombarded with obnoxious television commercials and overly perky newspeople gushing about an upcoming football game and the weather.
After a while the service coordinator came in and told me that the battery needed to be replaced as it was corroded and leak acid. When I asked how much a replacement was, and he said $185, I about fell off my chair. One-hundred-eighty-five dollars? Yikes.
Sibylle and I talked about it on the phone, and after she did a quick Google search to see what other people were charging, we agreed that his price was reasonable. This being the end of the month, a near $200 charge isn’t really feasible, but we need the Jimmy, so we’ll find the money somewhere.
Update: The service department just called, other than the battery everything is fine with the Jimmy. Whew! $196.06 to get it back, but we get it back whole and healthy.