Breakdown at Publix
When we left Stephen C. Foster State Park, we were both a little nervous about how the camper’s repair would hold up. It took about 80 miles or so for me to be really comfortable it was good. Though that nervousness was in the back of our mind, the trip to our next campground, Gamble Rogers Memorial, was pleasantly boring. We fully expected our trip home from Gamble Rogers to be the same. It wasn’t.
Sunday morning, yesterday as I write this, we got in the truck about a quarter till eight to go to a nearby nature walk. The truck wouldn’t start, dead battery. No big deal, we carry a jump start pack with us, so we should be right on our way. I jumped it, and away we went. LeeAnn said I should add an addendum to our story about breaking down at the start of this trip. I said I didn’t think needing a jumpstart was big enough of a deal to write about.
Then the trouble began.
About a minute after the jump, the truck flashed warnings at us faster than could be read. Something about the parking brake not being available and the electronic stability system needing servicing. I thought (or hoped) these were annoyances that would go away soon, but wasn’t really worried until we stopped at the gate and the truck shut itself down. I gave it another jump; it reluctantly started then shut itself back down. After a few of these cycles, the truck stayed on long enough to carefully back away from the gate it was blocking. Stopping again worried me enough that I didn’t even close the hood while backing mostly off the road. The truck shut down on a sharp turn while trying to get it completely out of the way. Another jump and we made it to a safe out-of-the-way spot.
There, we let it idle (it seemed to be okay with staying on now that it wasn’t blocking any traffic) while I did a quick Internet search for “electronic stability …” It appears this problem can happen after a dead battery, and it should reset itself (although we seemed to be suffering from an extreme version). With that new piece of knowledge, I figured if we could get our battery a little charged, the warnings and problems would go away. The truck was still idling, so we thought the next course of action would be to get back to the campsite. Driving very slowing, taking each turn as gently as possible and staying off the brake, we returned. I don’t know if braking or turning sharp would be a problem, but why anger the truck? We got back to the campsite. The warnings had slowed, so maybe things were getting better. We decided to keep gently driving the truck hoping it would reset itself.
We left the park and headed south on A1A, since there’s a long stretch of road with no traffic lights or stop signs. Things were looking up. The warnings had stopped. The only hint that there had ever been a problem were a couple of icons showing something wrong with the parking brake. As we drove on our confidence grew considerably. LeeAnn suggested we stop somewhere for breakfast. That sounded good. I said let’s do it, but I still didn’t want to turn the truck off or go into a drive-thru lane in case the truck turned itself off again.
We headed down the highway into Ormond Beach looking for a place that we could pop into and get some take out and eat by the truck as it idled and charged its battery. We saw a shopping center with a Publix and Dunkin’ and pulled into the plaza’s parking lot where I attempted a tight turn. The truck not only turned off, but it stopped itself too. We were stuck again. Luckily, if you can call this luck, we’d come to rest in a parking space. I tried to jump us again, but it wouldn’t start. Our jump pack was depleted.
LeeAnn called our car club. She went through the menu, but the only thing the computer system would let us do that applied was get a tow or a jump. We didn’t want either of them. I was confident that a jump wouldn’t solve our problem, but a new battery would. We got hold of an actual human, and she canceled our ticket and got us a new one for a new battery. They’d send a message when he was on his way.
An hour later, no message. We still hadn’t eaten. I went into the Publix to see what they had ready-to-eat. I was coming back out to report my findings when LeeAnn texted me: He’s here! Awesome. A white, unmarked box van was parked next to our truck. LeeAnn said he parked and hadn’t come out of the truck yet. He finally did get out, then he walked away ignoring us. This wasn’t the battery guy, just a rando with a commercial truck. Bummer.
I went back into Publix and got sushi. It was good. At least we were stuck in a comfortable place. After eating we called back the car club. No word on when the guy would show up, and he wasn’t answering his phone. This was about 10:30, we’d been in this parking lot for two hours. After a bit we decided the best bet was to call a car service and get a ride to a parts store, buy a battery and a few tools, and change the battery myself. I found a parts store about three miles away that had the battery we needed, downloaded the car service app, and ordered a ride. A nice man named Courtney took me to the parts store. As we were coming back from the store, the battery guy called LeeAnn and said he’ll be there in about 30 minutes. We debated, then decided to cancel the guy, since I should be able to have this battery changed out and us be gone before he’d even be there. And that’s what happened. About three and a half hours after we got stuck, I had the battery installed and we drove away. The truck behaved on the way back to the campsite, like nothing ever happened. The new battery solved the problem.
Checkout time was 1 pm, and we got our stuff together and got out of our campsite with about 30 seconds to spare. The trip home was pleasantly boring.