Michael & Liz are Bloggable

If you haven't seen this Old Spice commercial, now is your chance.



Since we have DVR, we don't watch a lot of commercials, but that one has become classic. I think it's from the Super Bowl this year? The point of this post is not that by the time you are done reading, you will smell like me, however you should be so lucky. No, last night I tackled a problem on Liz's car and in the middle of it I exclaimed "I feel like such a man." I apologize for the ego in this post, it's artificial, strictly for humor, I assure you.

A few months ago the turn signal on her car started clicking. During normal car operation, whenever you hit the turn signal, it rhythmically clicks until you are done turning. Well not only did her car start making that clicking randomly while she drove, it wasn't a rhythmic click. So sometimes it would click fast and sometimes slow and go back and forth extremely quickly. It was super annoying but went away within days for no reason. That was good enough for me!

Then this past Sunday it happened again and she called me and said "Can you look up to see what this is and how to fix it?" It would drive a normal person insane, but fortunately she's the most tolerant person I know. But that's really all she needed to say. The thought to look it up to see if it was a common problem hadn't occurred to me until then. Turns out, with a 2004 Alero, it is a common problem (and with all the 2000 to 2004 models and all the same year models of a Pontiac Grand Am). Apparently they all used the same part and the average price according to some forums to get it fixed and/or replaced was roughly 300 smackaroos. But it's a free fix when you're a man.

I read online that it's caused by the faulty electrical connections in the "multifunction switch" and that you have to take apart the back of the steering wheel, clean off the connections on that switch and then put fresh "dielectric" grease on them and that will fix the problem. Challenge accepted.

So I unplugged the battery from the engine in case something terrifying occurred like the air bag going off while I was doing this and then took apart the dashboard/steering wheel:

Here's a better view (the part I took out isn't in the picture, I already had taken it out as you can see from the unused connections):

And here is the so called Multifunction switch. It's basically the turn signal and windshield wiper piece to the car:

The dude that posted to the forum who said doing this worked, said not to fully take apart the multifunction switch because it had springs inside and could cause a mess. His suggestion was to crack it open a half inch and try and clean it from there. Men are not scared of no stinkin' springs. So I didn't listen to that advice. To which Liz remarked "Please don't break my car." Turns out, the dude was being ridiculous, they were not a "mess", here I'm unscrewing it to take it apart:

I got it open and the ironic thing about the picture below is that I'm holding a spring to figure out where it came from. Don't worry, it took two seconds, just like it should for a man.

Once it was fully open, I cleaned out all the grease that was around all the electrical connections and using a q-tip, put on fresh grease... everywhere.

I have no pictures of me putting it back in the car, but it went back in amazingly smooth. I then took it out for a 15 minute drive around the neighborhood. It actually felt really creepy because I was using my turn signal WAY too much and I got several looks from the homeowners at the end of a few cul de sacs as I put on the turn signal and proceeded to do u-turns. But I am happy to say that after driving around the neighborhood and driving to and from dinner last night, the clicking is gone. Look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man, now back to me. I'm on a horse.