I purchased a used 2017 Ford truck in the spring. As with all used vehicles, you save money, but you inherit someone else's problems. In this case, I noticed the windshield fluid spray barely hit above the windshield wipers. Living in Minnesota where winter salt keeps the roads running and salt spray keeps wiper fluid companies in business, one will not survive without fixing this. Seeing it was a small, simple problem, I set about to diagnose and fix the problem myself. (Now those who know me are probably rolling their eyes and saying 'not again'....) Funny how the simple things in life can carry the most powerful lessons.....
Being an engineer, I started down the logical troubleshooting path:
Is their fluid in the reservoir? Check! (Don't overlook the obvious)
Does the pump run? Must be since fluid is coming out - but without enough pressure
Any leaks? Didn't see any.
Being stumped that the obvious didn't show anything, I turned to by Google-Fu:
Clogged sprayers? Cleaned them to make sure, but no change.
Electrical not providing 12 volts? Moving on - too lazy to find the voltmeter
Tubes clogged or bad? I put my air compressor nozzle on the end of the tube and air/water came out the other end just fine.
Pump going bad? Must be as I ruled out everything else!
Proud of myself, I went to Amazon and ordered a new pump for $20 which arrived a week later as expected. W00t!
Last night with the new pump in hand, I gathered my tools, my bin for collecting screws (learned that lesson the hard way several times), my handy seat and got to work. Leaving out the gory details, about 30 minutes later, I had a soaked floor, wet clothes and a pump installed. Must be fixed, right?
Being in IT, I learned a long time ago nothing is fixed until the end user checks. In this case, I am the 'end user', so I fire up the truck, hit the fluid button, and the spray came out exactly the way it had before I started....
After crying softly with my head on the steering wheel, I pulled myself together and started the troubleshooting process all over focusing on being deliberate and methodical this time. I took the tubes apart at the junctions to test (spilt the problem). The pressure at the first junction was great. Same for the second junction. All that was left was the tubing from the second junction to the spray nozzles (isolate the location). I opened up some trim to check how the tubing was routed (check the isolated components). To my surprise, I found the tube was pinched from not being routed correctly through the trim! I moved the tube, installed the trim, tested, and surprise - everything worked great!
As I was cleaning up and putting tools away, I had to chuckle a bit. Having done IT for over 30 years, I've been through this process many times and yet still get tripped up by the simple things. Whether working on a truck, troubleshooting a computer problem or architecting an enterprise solution, the basics are still the same:
Have a checklist.
Follow the checklist.
Slow down and don't assume.
Never skip the simple things.
Overlooking the obvious and rushing cost both time and money.
Never sacrifice methodology for speed. You will only slow yourself down.
So nothing ground-breaking here -- just a reminder the fundamentals can differentiate the quality of work we provide. Now to go fix some code I broke.....
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