Monday morning couldn’t have come soon enough! On Sunday when we were traveling to our camping destination near the Mercedes dealer, Azul really started acting up.
We were driving onto the highway and Azul wasn’t shifting. It was staying at a low gear even though we were getting up to highway speeds. Justin tried shifting it into neutral and then back to drive but instead of fixing the problem, it got worse! Not only was the van not shifting but there was almost no power behind the gas. Justin was hitting the gas and we were crawling along just barely getting up the slight incline of the highway. Obviously, our flashers were on by then so people could pass us. At our snail’s pace we limped over to the nearest exit, which happened to be the one we were getting off at, so we would have a bigger, safer space to pull over with Wobbles and Azul.
Once safely off most of the road Justin turned off the ignition and promptly restarted it and hoped for the best. It worked! Azul still wasn’t shifting properly but the gas peddle was working again. This time in addition to the assortment of other warning lights reeling on the dash board, the window washer fluid light went on as well even though we just filled it before we started our trip which was 2 days prior. Anything else??
On Monday we were able to get Azul into the dealer and they found that it was indeed a bad wheel speed sensor. So crazy that something so small could cause so many issues (except the wiper fluid– that one was caused by a leak). They replaced both back tire sensors, one because it had gone bad and the other as a preventative. Good old Azul is back up to speed, literally!
While Justin took Azul to the doctor’s the girls and I stayed back at the Tri-Cities KOA campground with a pool, hot tub and playground. It was interesting, the indoor pool and hot tub were clean and the decorations were cute but the room smelled strongly of propane. I brought it to the attention of 3 of the maintenance people and none of them said they smelled anything and assured me all was well. I wasn’t satisfied with this so I opened up the doors to outdoors to let the place air out before I let the girls go in. I thought maybe it was a fluke but each time we went in it smelled just as strongly to me. Scary! The pool was very cold and that review was coming from our girls who seem to not be too affected by cold water. The hot tub was used often. 🙂
Azul was done at the dealers by noon so we were able cancel our precautionary 2nd night reservation at the KOA and hit the road toward Canada. The rest of the afternoon was used driving and stopping for groceries, arriving at our next camping spot just in time for some Harry Potter reading and bedtime for the girls.
