Generally I deal with media and my own writing here, but on occasion I’ll branch out into other subjects. Today’s branch out happens to be car repair. Or more specifically the issues people encounter when trying to learn how to handle their own car repairs.
Recently I’ve been replacing various lights on my car, a 2001 Pontiac Sunfire. However, I know very little when it comes to practical car repair. I can change a tire, sure, but when I need to replace something like a console instrument cluster because the bulb for 50mph is burned out on my speedometer, I’m not really even sure where to start. So I’ve turned to the internet in the hopes that there is knowledge out there that is being shared.
I’ve learned that this is often the case. But never quite exactly what you’re looking for.
Often people will have questions that you’ve got. That’s not a big surprise, I hear there’s a rule or something along those lines. If you’ve thought of it, someone else has already thought of it and it’s already on the internet. Sometimes in explicit form. Unfortunately it seems the same does not go for the answers.
To wit, I have discovered that to get at this burned out light, I must in fact remove the dashboard of my car. Obnoxious, really, to replace one single bulb, but I’m not going to get into that right now. Now I need to know how to remove my dashboard. Because I really have no clue where to start. What this particular complaint about is how stupid the people answering that question are.
You see, it turns out that the Pontiac Sunfire uses an instrument light cluster. I can’t just replace the single bulb ( according to some, not according to others ), I have to have the whole cluster serviced. What kills me here is that on about twelve different answer based forums where the specific question was “How do I remove the dashboard of my 2002 Pontiac Sunfire” followed by the explanation of “I need to replace one of the burnt out lights in my instrument light cluster on my speedometer / temperature gauge / tachometer” the best voted answer by other readers was “You can’t just replace the bulb. You have to have the whole light cluster serviced.”
…
Great.
THAT WAS NOT THE [EXPLETIVE] QUESTION.
What the [expletive]. What. The. [Expletive]. Seriously. Even if you know that it’s not as simple as replacing a single bulb, how stupid do you have to be to completely miss that even if they need to have the whole cluster serviced, they still need to remove the [expletive] dashboard anyway.
Fortunately, CdnReaper over at Pontiac Forums ( thread 20855 ) was nice enough to give someone who asked the question the actual answer.
Thank you, CdnReaper. You have what was once called common sense. Unfortunately now it seems that should be called Exceptional Sense.
— Vid