Just a Pair of Cuffs

I replaced the battery in my van. You just know when you buy a new-to-you vehicle that they're gonna put the oldest battery in the joint in your New Baby. Surprisingly, it lasted almost a year! I always knew I had to replace it & had plans to do so with the pre-winter tune-up but it died before my appointment. Typical! But when the battery died, the air conditioning/heating/defrosting/wiping module - ya gotta bless the old modular system of doing things - reverted to some factory reset. All the lights flashed all the time. The air conditioning became dominant. And no one knew how to fix it. "You can bring it in & we'll take a look" they say. Yeah, right. We all know that means $200 to mess around & it'll still flash! I didn't fall off the truck yesterday you know.

I discovered this is a common problem when batteries are replaced in the Caravan/Voyager series. Grand Caravan owners on down to cheapo 1990 Voyagers all have the same problem if they have air conditioning. Most mechanics & shops haven't a clue what to do. They tell you it will reset in 15 minutes by itself. Lies!! The lights still flash & make you crazy for 15 minutes every time you restart the car. It never permanently resets. People have bought new control modules, rewired things, installed new air conditioning & paid out hundreds of dollars for "Servicing". One woman just duct taped over the lights!! Apparently, all it takes is pushing buttons in the right sequence to reset the whole system. A nice mechanic in Chilliwack solved the problem & put it on the net. The solution doesn't always work for everyone the first time, sometimes you have to reset it several times! And sometimes, you still have two blinking buttons that you have to live with. But it's better than 7 blinking buttons & no heat!!!


And what has all this to do with cuffs you ask?? Well, without the button solution I had a mixture of heat & air all the time. Yeah, the buttons stopped flashing after 15 minutes but the air never actually shut down so I had a cold draft up top with heat underneath. And those damned flashing buttons. So I used the sequence to reset the whole thing. The first reset gave me heat on command but 2 buttons kept on flashing. I just couldn't leave well enough alone so I had to fiddle with it until ALL the buttons went off. And now, I don't have ANY heat for the first 15 minutes every morning. When I do get heat it's a mixture of heat & air or it fluctuates between the two. If it was summer, who cares but it's winter dammit or the start of winter. And I have to keep not only myself defrosted in the morning but my windshield as well & keep it that way too.
I'm freezing. My hands are cold & that air conditioning goes right up the sleeves of my jacket. A light bulb came on & I dropped everything to knit a pair of silk & merino cuffs to wear under my jacket. They work a treat!! And I love them. The heat is isn't fixed but by gawd, I'm a hellova lot warmer!!!