Murphy's Law Strikes The Car Again!

As if you couldn't tell by past car issue posts, I really, really wish I'd never bought us this car.

Monday we went out to Renton for some shopping - it's a good hour drive for us from Port Orchard. Everything was just peachy until after we bought gas and I talked DH into stopping at the Goodwill by the pound in Tacoma. When we were leaving, the car wouldn't start. DH got out and checked all the fluids since we've had problems with that in the past - everything was fine. Tried again, this time it starts alright, albeit with a bit of a funky noise.

I wanted to stop at Grocery Outlet since this location has the bigger cans some times (I love those for when I know I can make large portions and freeze meals!) The car doesn't want to start again. DH waits a few minutes, and tries again. Here I am starting to panic, because the last thing I want to do is be stranded in Tacoma waiting for AAA to tow us - and try to figure out a way back to P.O. (we even had the Pudgy Princess with us, so it's not like we could have hopped on the bus or anything)

It starts again, this time perfectly fine. We decide to chance it and hit up MudBay for the Pudgy Princess since she has been in the car all day, and it does it AGAIN.

We get home, DH calls my father and explains what is going on. DH has the phone on speaker and starts the car up so he can hear the problem, and it starts just as normal, with no problem.

Hmmm.

We decide that maybe their was a vapor lock in the gas since we had filled up completely and we'll see what happens in the morning.

The car starts fine. It starts fine every where we go, except the last stop - then it does AGAIN. Finally I am ready to take a baseball bat to the engine (hehe). DH suggests we come home so he can pop the hood and look everything over.

One of the neighbors comes over and between the two of them they come up with a variety of scenarios, none of which is making me particularly happy. Maybe if DH actually knew how to work on cars, I might have felt a little bit better ;) but I was adding up more car repair bills, and I was starting to have a panic attack (hello, I want to be able to shop!)

DH determines that we'll hit up Schuck's Auto Supply store and have them run a diagnostics scan (did you know they do that for free? Words cannot describe my love of this chain.) The car starts up fine (grrr). We get to Schuck's and explain the scenario, go back out to run the scan, the car starts up fine (grrrr). They run the scan, nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Everything is running perfectly fine.

I was starting to think the car was suffering from multiple personalities. When I start muttering things to a car, maybe *I* was the one needing meds....

Anyways, the only thought they had was one of the cables to the battery looked a little frayed. It was suggested we trim off the frays and tightened the cable, just in case.

So far, no issues when DH went to work. Want to bet it'll happen tomorrow when I need to make a grocery run? ;)