Feb 19 - some car maintenance

I'd ordered a new windshield washer pump for the M5 as it didn't work.  The car has two -- one under the hood, easy to access, that squirts fluid on the headlights.  Nope, that one works fine.  The other is on the passenger side, behind the wheel well shielding.  Great.

Up with the jack, off with the wheel, try to figure out how to get at this one.  The wheel well shield is huge, all one piece from front to back and attached with a couple of dozen screws and a few of those plastic rivets.  Unfortunately the rivets are the non-removable kind -- cut them off and replace them.

I eventually worked my way to the point where it was away from the back-side of the well and lo and behold. there's the reservoir as well as two pumps and the level sensor. Why two pumps ?  I don't know.  Luckily it was the one that matched the new one that was the issue.  The pumps are pressed into the reservoir, obviously with o-rings at the insertion point, and then have an electrical connection as well as a fluid-out hose. 

Of course pulling the pump out of the reservoir made a mess ... but at least it was only ww fluid.  I was doint this in the garage, as it was cold outside.  In we go, test it out ... whew, it was that pump and not the other one.  Wiggle the shielding back into place and find a place for all the screws and take advantage of the fact that I actually have some of those plastic rivets, only mine can be removed.

Voila, good !  Now I have to get that car into the local guy to have the thermostat replaced.  Yes, even here in Florida it's good to have a working thermostat.  The BMW version stays open when it fails so the engine doesn't heat up enough when it's cold out ... like today at 28F.  Oh well, the high tomorrow is supposed to be over 70F, so we're back in the black.

Later in the day we took both cars out, dropping the X5 at the BMW dealer for them to do diagnostics.  More on that in a minute.

I spent 1-1.5 hours on the phone with United Healthcare trying to sort out a claim that was appearing against my plan.  It was a claim of Sandy's, that shouldn't have been there at all since she's in the Medicare Supplement, not my Employer plan.  The rep couldn't even see the claim, for some reason.  She put me on hold to transfer me, came back on several times to apologize for the wait and then finally I got to another person.  Well, that person said that she couldn't see Sandy in the Medicare Advantage plan.  No, of course not, because she's not in the MA plan.  She's got the AARP/UHC Supplement.  Different gang.  On hold again, but this time I got hung up on after a while.  Grrr.

I called back again, this time directly to the number on Sandy's card, got a nice lady.   We agreed together that she couldn't see the claim either, since it never got to that side of the company and the claim has to be resubmitted by the provider.  It seems that the provider correctly submitted the lab claim to them but not the office work.

She then pointed out that Sandy's AARP membership had expired.  No, says I, that's been renewed.  Sandy dug out her card and we figured out that Sandy was on the AARP roster twice, once with an old number associated with her health coverage and once with me.  The one with me is up-to-date.

The lady didn't want to switch the AARP number on the health coverage because that could mess up claims.  She proposed moving the $16 membership fee to the old number and me as well.  I said no, that would mean twice as much mail from AARP.  She got a real laugh out of that and said "you realize that I'll have to tell my co-workers that one".  We laughed together ... what can you do.

Yes, what can you do.  They were all helpful people and there's no point in getting agitated.  The error originated with the provider and they won't get paid until they fix it.  The hold music was acceptable, not constant advertisements ... a blessing.

Now we all understand why healthcare in the US costs so much.  It's at least 9/10 administration and 1/10 actually providing care.

Off to the BMW dealer, we dropped off the X5 with Kelly after a wait because she was with a customer, and then headed to Walmart at I95 and Granada, Ormond Beach.  Sara wanted us to pick up a doll house for Zoe that was on clearance special -- normally $70 but now $17.  What a deal !  We searched for a while, finally enlisting the help of someone.  She searched, couldn't find it.  I said to her "can't you check stock" (Sara had checked online and there were at least two of these available at this store).  She said -- get this -- "oh, I don't work here" -- it's really wonderful how some people can be helpful even though they know nothing.  It's like the entire population of Italy; everyone will help/give directions, even if they have no idea.

So ... we found a store employee who wasn't in the department.  She looked too.  Then we found another, still not in that department.  She looked too.  We finally gave up.  It's a fairly large area in the store but this is a large item and should have been obvious, if it was there.  Sara and Sandy have to try again today.  We'll be back out that way when we pick up the X5.

From there we headed to the restaurant.  We were originally going to go to Jim and Sheryl's rental before the restaurant, but it was late so Sandy contacted Sheryl with iMsg and we met them at the Grill on Tomoka.  I'd seen the restaurant many times in my cycling and always thought that it would be worth trying.  It was good.  Jim and Sheryl had been there a couple of times before with Jim's cousins.  Good choice.

Back home, another day was done. 

300k Saturday, starting about 45 minutes from here.  That's about as good as it gets, proximity-wise. I'll get organized today and of course we have to pick up the X5 this afternoon.

Dinner with Phil and Maria Burfitt in Palm Beach Gardens on Sunday, so we're staying overnight down there.  Google says that it's a 2.5 hour drive.  We had dinner with them in London with Jim and Sheryl.  They've been on vacation in the Keys with their daughter Hannah and family and are on their way back home.

Onward !